The Double Eagle

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The desk fan was on its highest setting. The vibrations had caused it to skip across the conference table’s slippery surface until it was balancing against the thin rim of metal that ran around its edge and threatening to throw itself over the side.

“Okay, let’s just go through them one more time,” Jennifer suggested, slurping the dregs of the now warm and flat Coke. She dropped the empty cup into the overflowing trash can that sat on the floor between them. Special Agent Paul Viggiano raised his dark eyebrows wearily.

“What for? We’ve been through every single guy like, a hundred times. Cross-checked them with the CIA and the NCIC databases. Been through their bank records. Checked their wives, their parents, even their kids, for Chrissake. There’s nothing here. They’re all clean.”

Jennifer got up and moved around the conference table, the overhead halogens reflecting here and there in the polished walnut.

“Because we’re not leaving here till we find something,” she said firmly, her eyes flicking between the piles of paper and files and boxes that had been strewn along the table’s length, the rubble of her two-day investigation so far.

Viggiano stood up, a trim, muscular figure, his dark hair slicked back, his chin covered in a seemingly permanent five o’clock shadow. Shaking his head angrily, he tucked his white shirt back into his dark blue suit trousers — a shiny fabric with a faint red thread running through it — as he spoke.

“You know what? This whole thing stinks. It’s a goddamned mess.” He slammed his fist down in front of him, the fan wobbling unsteadily before finally toppling off and plunging helplessly to the floor, the cord trailing behind it like a bungee rope that had been tied too long.

Jennifer had to agree. The whole thing was a mess. She knew that Corbett had fought to control the number of people in the loop over the last two days, but cases like this wouldn’t stay quiet for long. It was too good an opportunity for a fund-raiser — a chance to put the boot in on some of the other departments and agencies and grab a bigger slice of the federal budget in the process. It was the sort of story Washington lived and prayed for.

“Yeah, it’s a mess, but it’s our mess,” she retorted. “So you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

She replaced the fan on the table while Viggiano shook his head again and loosened his military-looking tie a little more. Jennifer knew that he was finding this harder going than she was. He was about ten years older than she and two years ago she’d worked on a case for him for a few months. He’d even made a clumsy pass in a bar that she’d brushed off as politely as she could. Now she was in charge and it clearly hurt, although his feelings were the last thing on her mind. She’d worked too hard for this opportunity to let Paul Viggiano screw it up for her. And although she hated to admit it to herself, she’d had to put up with so much crap over the last few years, it actually felt good to be on the other end for a change.

“Look, I’ve been there, okay. I’ve seen the place,” she continued, her voice hard and urgent. “We’re not talking about Macy’s here. You don’t just walk in and help yourself. Whoever did this had detailed knowledge of the vault’s layout and security systems. Very detailed.”

Viggiano snorted.

“Big deal. Everything’s for sale at the right price. If someone wanted the plans for Fort Knox they could have got them. Money talks.” Viggiano rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and held it up to Jennifer’s face with a thin smile.

“You think they keep the details down at the local planning department? Layout, alarm systems, access codes?” Jennifer asked sarcastically. “Everything about that place is classified. Jesus, they probably incinerate the grass clippings. It’s wrapped tight. I’m telling you, someone on the inside must have been involved. So we’re going to go through all of them again. Now.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Viggiano ran his hand through his thick forelock of dark hair in frustration and picked up the file where he’d thrown it down on the table earlier. “Where do you want to start?” His eyes flashed at her, brimming with resentment.

“Right at the beginning. With how many people have had access or actually been into the vault in the last twelve months. If we need to go back further we will, but let’s focus there first.” Viggiano muttered under his breath as he counted the numbers again, consulting various sheets of paper that he picked up from in front of him.

“Like I said before. Forty-seven people.”

“Plus me. That makes forty-eight.”

“What, you think I’m an idiot? You’re in the forty-seven,” he said, his chin jutting in indignation.

“I am? How do you work that out?” Jennifer flicked through her hieroglyphic notes, adding numbers in her head.

“Twenty-five guards from the Mint Police, fifteen military personnel, five Treasury officials, and two federal agents, one of which was you. Not that many people get down there.” Viggiano held up the sheet of paper on which he’d done his sums and waved it in the air as if to prove his point.

“That’s strange. Rigby told me there were twenty-six guards. That’s why I made it forty-eight,” said Jennifer, her smooth brown forehead momentarily creased by a slight frown.

“Who?”

“Rigby. The officer in charge, remember?” she said impatiently, although the corners of her mouth twitched at the memory of Sheppard’s pink trousers and Rigby’s ashen face.

“Well, according to the Treasury it’s twenty-five. I got all the names here.” He held up several sheets of paper by their corners between his thumb and forefinger. “They faxed them over this morning.”

“Let me see those,” she demanded. Viggiano shrugged and passed them over to Jennifer, who scanned through the names carefully. She paused on the final sheet and then, frowning, held it up to the light.

“What?” Viggiano’s tone was immediately defensive. Jennifer didn’t say anything but just gripped the sheet between her thumb and forefinger and rubbed them together. A second sheet peeled away from the first with a faint sucking noise. Viggiano went white.

“Like I said, twenty-six guards,” she said quietly, inspecting the single name at the top of the newly revealed sheet with a grim look on her face.

“I don’t understand,” Viggiano spluttered.

“I guess the ink must have stuck them together.” She knew that if their roles had been reversed, Viggiano would have come down on her hard for that sort of oversight, but that wasn’t her style. They both knew he had screwed up and as far as she was concerned that was that. There was certainly no point in rubbing his nose in it. What was important was seeing whether this new piece of information led them somewhere.

“Tony Short,” she read from the piece of paper. “DOB March eighteenth, 1965. Deceased.”

“Deceased? So he’s irrelevant,” said Viggiano with relief.

“He had access to the vault.”

“But he’s dead.”

“Only just.” She laid the sheet on the table and pushed it over to Viggiano so he could read what it said for himself. “Four days ago.”

“A coincidence.” Viggiano sounded like he was trying to convince himself as well as her.

“Maybe. But he’s the only one we haven’t checked out. What do we know about him?” Viggiano turned to the laptop to his left and typed in the name. A file flashed up a few seconds later.

“Ex-NYPD. Medal of Honor. Transferred to the Mint Police five years ago. Married with kids. Usual boy scout shit. It’s all here. Deceased*.” He looked up. “What’s the asterisk for?”

“Suicide,” Jennifer replied. “The asterisk means suicide.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It had been a hat factory when it had first been built in 1876, according to the inscription chiseled into its once proud façade. Then, during the Second World War, production had been given over to the manufacture of buttons for RAF uniforms. By the time Tom had bought it, the building had fallen into disuse, the store and warehouse level empty, the three upper floors carved up into office space in the 1960s.

Tom had chosen the, by comparison, palatial surroundings of the former managing director’s office as his bedroom. Inexplicably it came complete with its own marbled en suite bathroom, as if the former boss’s managerial mystique would have crumbled had the staff ever suspected that he used the toilet much like the rest of them.

Eventually, Tom’s idea was to have this top floor as a large open-plan living room complete with kitchen and dining area. The second floor would be bedrooms and bathrooms while the first… well, he still hadn’t quite decided what to do with the first. More showroom space, perhaps?

It didn’t matter. That was all in the future anyway, after the store was up and running. For now, he had to make do with the cracked mirror on the back of the bathroom door as he adjusted his tie, picking his silver cufflinks off the chipped filing cabinet that now doubled as a chest of drawers and deftly threading them through the double cuff of his Hilditch & Key shirt.

“I’ll see you later,” he shouted to Dominique as he clattered down the concrete steps, his footsteps echoing back up around the stairwell’s empty carcass.

“Okay.” She had appeared at the doorway to the second floor where she had taken up residence amid the tea-stained walls of the former finance department. “Have fun.”

Tom stepped out into a cherry sunset, the sun scrolling down through an orange sky, a warm whisper of air shushing through the streets. He liked seeing the city at this time. It was a strange transition period, when one set of inhabitants melted away and another appeared.

He soon reached Smithfield, Europe’s oldest meat market, a low-slung amalgam of a refurbished cast-iron Victorian market hall and a postwar brick-and-concrete hangar. It was surrounded on all sides by a crenellated roofline of alternately short and tall warehouses, a jarring convergence of redbrick and white stone, of gothic windows and industrial steel shutters. Five minutes later and he was in Hatton Garden, the center of London’s diamond trade.

It was nearly empty. Gone were the eager shop assistants enticing you to enter, offering you their very best price, suggesting a pair of earrings to go with the necklace. Gone were the courier bikes and the security vans and the anxious soon-to-be-weds, comparing ring prices in gaudy shop windows. Their shutters had been drawn down, their contents safely stowed for the night, their neon lights extinguished.

And yet the street projected a latent energy. Rather than be asleep it was merely resting. A few Hasidim with pale faces and dark suits still stood in doorways, plunged into shops and buildings, swapped anxious glances from under their dark fedoras. Behind the scenes, the work went on, stones were cut, deals were done, hands shaken, money counted.

Perhaps because his own life had been so lacking in order, so devoid of any fixed reference points or rules, Tom was fascinated by this place. As in Smithfield, he drew an almost spiritual reassurance from the continuity of these streets, their daily cycle, the comforting embrace of their familiar routine. In a way, he craved their predictability.

Stepping in off the street, Tom presented his pass to the security guards on duty in the dingy fluorescent lobby of the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit, Ltd. Sitting behind their barred window they inspected it carefully, flickering screens in front of them covering every angle of the lobby and vault and staining their faces blue. Satisfied, they buzzed him through the first door and then, when that had closed behind him, the second door with metal bars running through it.

The reinforced vault there, at the foot of the dark green linoleum stairs, was about seventeen foot square, its walls lined from floor to ceiling with 950 identically sized tungsten and steel doors that gleamed silver under the lights, each individual box numbered in black. Unusually for that time it was empty. That suited Tom perfectly.

He took a key out of his pocket and indicated to the guard who had followed him into the room which box he wanted opened. They both put their keys into the two separate keyholes and turned them. With a click, the door opened. Tom drew out the black metal container it concealed and placed it on the metal tray that slid out from between two layers of boxes at about waist height. It was empty apart from another key, which he removed. Turning to a second box on the opposite wall, he and the guard again inserted their keys. This time, Tom waited until the guard left the room before opening the black container.

He already knew what was in it, but opened the small leather pouch it contained anyway, emptying its contents into his gloved hand. Just over a quarter of a million in cut diamonds, his share for the Fabergé egg he’d stolen in New York. Much easier to move than cash and, if you knew who to ask, accepted in more places than American Express. He tipped the diamonds back into the pouch.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he removed the egg and placed it in the second box. He’d wrapped it in his ski mask, a small symbolic act that he knew wouldn’t be lost on Archie when he came to collect it. He slid the box back into the wall and locked the door. He then dropped the pouch and the key to the second box into the first box, returned it to the wall, and again locked it shut.

He passed through the security gates again, nodded at the guards and then stepped out onto the street just in time to see the streetlights buzz on.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jennifer had always believed that there were no such things as coincidences, just different perspectives. From one perspective, a series of individual events could appear totally random with nothing binding them together other than their actual existence. A coincidence.

From another, however, events could evolve, become more complex, deepen in significance until they ultimately emerged as constituent parts of an overall pattern of cause and effect that could never have been dreamed of originally, let alone guessed at.

These were the facts as far as she could tell: Short had worked at Fort Knox. He was young and healthy. He was happily married with three children he adored. He was a regular churchgoer. And he was liked and respected at work. All in all, he was certainly not your average suicide material. So from one perspective, the fact that he had committed suicide just a few days before the discovery that five gold coins had been stolen from Fort Knox was just a terrible coincidence.

And yet, when viewed from another, more cynical perspective it was no coincidence at all. It was downright suspicious.

Corbett had agreed when she had finally managed to track him down the previous afternoon on his way to another internal meeting, a look of grim-faced resignation stamped across his face. He had greeted her with a tired smile.

“Five minutes, Browne, that’s all I got. So you’d better make it quick. Let’s talk and walk.”

She had rapidly explained what she had found out about Short, choosing to omit Viggiano’s mistake, although she knew he wouldn’t have done the same for her. Corbett had clearly been impressed, even pausing to give her a pat on the side of the shoulder that had made her swell with pride.

“So he didn’t leave a note?”

“No.” She had given a firm shake of her head. “All the witness statements say it was totally out of character. He was happily married and doing well at work. He just doesn’t fit the profile.”

“I agree.” A brief pause. “And you say he was one of the guards down at Fort Knox?”

“Yeah. One of their star performers, apparently. Whatever that means.”

“And tell me again when this happened?”

“Four days ago. That’s just two days after Ranieri was murdered in Paris.”

“Hmmm.” Corbett’s forehead had creased in thought.

“The autopsy hasn’t happened yet. I spoke to the Louisville coroner’s office earlier and they’ve agreed to delay the procedure until tomorrow so I can observe. I’ve booked a flight.”

“Good.” Corbett had nodded as he reached the meeting room door he’d been heading for. “You’re right, it doesn’t add up. Let me know what you find. Oh, and Browne… ” he had said as she turned away. “Nice work.” She could almost have kissed him.

The mortuary was an anonymous white slab of a building on the outskirts of town, only a short drive from Louisville International Airport and screened from the road by a wall of cedar trees. Jennifer stepped gratefully out of the humidity’s dank embrace into the building’s refrigerated reception area.

There was a hint of desperation to the way it had been decorated, the walls painted a jarring concoction of pinks and blues, orange molded plastic seating lining one wall. The Beach Boys were being piped through a lone ceiling speaker, the noise muffled where the protective mesh had been painted over by mistake.

An expressionless woman, funereally dressed behind a rectangular access hatch punched into the far wall, acknowledged her with a shrug, dialed a number, and announced her arrival in a whisper. A few minutes later and a short balding man, about fifty years old, Jennifer guessed, bustled into the room, gold pocket-watch chain spanning his stomach before vanishing into the depths of his vest pocket.

“Agent Browne? I’m Dr. Raymond Finch, the pathologist here. We spoke earlier on the phone.”

“Hello.” Jennifer shook his hand warmly, holding out her ID in her other hand, although she noticed that he barely gave it a glance. “Thank you for inviting me down here.” He’d had no choice, really, but she knew that it never hurt to show a little humility, especially with the locals.

“No problem. We’re pretty much good to go if you are.”

“Great.”

He led her through a door, along a narrow corridor, down some stairs and then through a set of heavy double doors that swung open in front of them to reveal a small, white-tiled anteroom. The temperature had dropped down here and her throat had a slight burning sensation from the cocktail of disinfectant and formaldehyde that seemed to grow stronger as she penetrated deeper into the building’s entrails.

“You ever done one of these before?” Finch handed her a long white gown that she slipped on over her black jacket and long skirt, taking one for himself to cover the pale green scrub suit he was pulling on. He then placed a set of plastic shoe covers over his brown deck shoes.

“No.”

“Well, it’s pretty straightforward. Ugly but straightforward. You’re welcome to sit out here until we’re done, if you like.”

He smiled sympathetically but Jennifer gave a firm shake of her head. She hadn’t traveled all this way to miss the action.

“I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies, Doctor. One more won’t hurt.”

“Okay. Then let’s get started.”

Finch led her through another set of double doors to the autopsy room. It was quite a wide space, perhaps twenty foot square and blindingly white. Powerful lights beat down on the spotless tiled walls and floor and reflected off the stainless-steel work tops and glass-fronted cabinets that wrapped themselves around two of the walls. In the middle of the room stood a stainless-steel table, a waist-high slanted tray that had been plumbed for running water. A chrome hanging scale rocked gently in the air-conditioning’s hum like a medieval gibbet.

“So what’s the Bureau’s interest in this case?”

“It’s just a routine inquiry. Nothing to get excited about,” she lied, hoping that she had disguised the deceit in her answer better than Finch had disguised the curiosity in his original question.

“Ah.” She could tell he didn’t believe her. “Well, it may be routine for you but we don’t get too many suicides round these parts. And when we do, they tend to have put a gun to their head. So this is about as exciting as it gets.”

He laughed and in different circumstances, Jennifer knew that she would have found Finch quite soothing, kind gray eyes peering warmly over the top of half-moon glasses, a grandfatherly white moustache bristling under his beaked nose. But she was cold and her eyes stung from the whiteness of the room and she just wanted him to get on with it.

“So where’s the body?”

Finch didn’t seem to notice the slight impatience in her voice.

“My assistant should be along with Mr. Short any minute now. Ah, here he is.”

A gurney rolled in, a white sheet covering the body lying on it, closely followed by a bored-looking youth sporting a disconcerting blaze of peroxide hair and matching tongue stud and nose rings. He was dressed like Finch in medical scrub suit and protective gown.

“You’ve read the police report, I expect?” asked Finch as the assistant scraped the gurney along the side of the autopsy table with a metallic screech. Jennifer nodded, flinching at the noise.

“Of course. His son saw smoke coming from the garage and found his father in the car. The police tried to administer first aid on the scene but it was too late.”

“Yes. They found him on the backseat.”

“Did they? That wasn’t mentioned anywhere.”

The assistant levered the body onto the autopsy table with a brutal series of pushes and shoves that made Jennifer wince. Short lay awkwardly, like a hastily arranged doll. His skin was waxy and bleached, the face flat with dark rings under the eyes, the flesh slack and gloopy.

“Buckled in.” The way Finch said it suggested that he thought this had a deeper significance and Jennifer picked up on it immediately.

“Buckled in? You think that might mean something?”

Finch shrugged.

“It’s certainly unusual.”

“As is finding him in the back, if you ask me. I mean, if it was your car, wouldn’t you normally sit in the driver or passenger seat?” Finch nodded his agreement as he pulled first one, then another set of surgical gloves onto each of his hands, releasing each wristband with a loud thwack.

“I guess people do strange things when they’re about to kill themselves,” he ventured. “Who knows what he was thinking. A cry for help? An unconscious reference to a troubled childhood? There are any number of possible reasons.”

Finch pulled a mask over his face and moved round to confirm that the toe tag matched the autopsy permit handed to him by his assistant with detailed X rays of the whole body that had been taken earlier in the day. Having satisfied himself that he had the right body, he began the procedure.

First, he checked the body for any abnormalities such as puncture marks, bruises, or cuts. His voice droned on mechanically as he dictated what he saw into the small microphone clipped to his lapel, the only other sound the shutter-click of the assistant’s Nikon as he followed him round the table, Finch stepping back every so often to allow him to get a better shot.

Even though the room burned with the intimacy of death, it was the terrifying impersonality of the procedure that struck Jennifer most. The laboratory-like surroundings, the faceless uniforms, the official forms and photographs and case numbers that reduced what had once been a man, a person, to an anonymous file entry, a lonely statistic. She felt suddenly very sorry for Short.

The initial examination confirmed that carbon monoxide — or as Finch would have it, CO poisoning — was the most likely cause of death. Short’s fingernails and lips were stained a telltale cherry red, a sure sign of asphyxia from lack of oxygen in the blood. Apart from a small tattoo on his left shoulder, there was nothing else.

This phase complete, the assistant placed a “body block” under Short’s back, a rubber brick that caused the chest to protrude outward and the arms and neck to fall back, allowing the maximum exposure of the trunk for incisions.

Finch selected a scalpel from the instrument tray on his right and cut into Short’s chest, a deep Y-shaped incision that ran from each shoulder to the base of the breastbone and then down in a straight line to the pubic bone, deviating slightly to avoid the navel. He peeled the skin, muscle, and soft tissues away from the chest wall and then pulled the chest flap up over Short’s face so that the front of the rib cage and the strap muscles of the front of the neck lay exposed. Then he used a bone cutter to clip through the bones on each side of the front of the rib cage as if he was cutting through a wire fence. This allowed him to peel off the sternum, although he had to hack away at some of the soft tissues that stuck stubbornly to the back of the chest plate.

Jennifer looked on with horrified fascination, part of her wondering whether she should have accepted Finch’s offer to wait outside rather than let her fear of missing out on anything get the better of her, part of her unable to look away. He used what Jennifer recognized from some class or other back at the Academy as the standard “Rokitansky” method, not unlike field dressing a deer where, starting at the neck and moving downward, he cut all the organs free and then removed them from the body in one block.

Finch carried the blood-soaked mass to the dissecting table, a stainless-steel surface mounted at the foot of the autopsy table, while his assistant moved the body block to behind Short’s head as he prepared to remove his brain. Finch spread the organ block out and then cut the chest organs away from the abdominal organs and the esophagus with scissors, dictating all the time. But his monotonous delivery was suddenly interrupted.

“Dr. Finch?”

Finch looked up as the assistant beckoned him over.

“What’s up, Danny?”

“Can you take a look at this?” Finch put the scissors down and walked round to where his assistant was standing behind Short’s head.

“What have you got?”

“Check it out.” The assistant pointed at Short’s head. Finch ran his hands over the base of Short’s skull, feeling it with his fingertips.

“That’s strange,” he said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“I have three hundred thirty thousand pounds to my right. Three hundred thirty thousand pounds for this unique piece. The sword awarded to Admiral Lord Nelson by Sultan Selim the Third after the Battle of the Nile. Do I have any improvements on three hundred thirty thousand pounds? Going to the gentleman on my right for three hundred thirty thousand pounds. Going once. Going twice. Sold to the gentleman on my right for three hundred thirty thousand pounds.”

The auctioneer’s hammer came down with the resounding crack of ivory on oak and a dignified round of applause echoed off the gilded ceiling.

Tom slipped unnoticed from the room, hoping to beat the inevitable crush as the auction drew to a close. The lobby was already busy and a couple of journalists brushed past him as they ran outside to ring the afternoon’s events through to their desks. The sword had made nearly five times its estimate and that, together with its illustrious provenance, was good copy.

It felt good to be back. Auctions had been a fertile hunting ground for him over the years, providing ready-made targets, especially the private collectors who seemed to have a more cavalier approach to security. But he found he was enjoying it even more now he wasn’t on the lookout for his next possible score, like walking along a street and taking time to look up at the buildings on either side rather than always concentrating on the sidewalk and where he was next going to tread.

“Thomas? Thomas, is that you?” Tom heard his name, strangely unfamiliar in its lengthened form, scrambling over the heads of the people now flowing out of the auction rooms, thick catalogues in one hand, the other poised to grab a glass of wine from one of the eager waiters strategically positioned to meet the onrushing crowds head-on. Turning, Tom immediately recognized the man in the white linen suit elbowing his way through to him and broke into a broad smile.

“Uncle Harry. How are you?” Tom held out his hand, but the man brushed it aside and instead threw his arms around his shoulders. He was about fifty-five now, Tom estimated, tall with powerful arms and a strong, square-cut face that he held high with military stiffness. Although it was fading to gray, he still had a full head of hair that parted neatly on one side and his dark green eyes twinkled merrily under thick eyebrows. He reminded Tom, as he had always done since he was a boy, of a large bear.

Up close, many might have described him as scruffy, the obvious quality of his clothes not compensating for their now faded glory. The years had certainly taken their toll on the linen suit, for example, repeated launderings dying it a pale gray, a few telltale wine stains still visible on the left lapel and the right trouser leg. The fold in the double cuffs of his blue Turnbull & Asser shirt had long since frayed, strands of white cotton hanging loose, the points of the collar blunted and worn. Against this muted background, the loud orange-and-yellow stripes of his MCC tie stood out, the yellow echoing the squat gold signet ring that engulfed the small finger of his left hand. He carried a Panama hat rolled in his right hand.

“Thomas, my boy, I thought it was you.” His voice was diamond sharp, centuries of carefully controlled social breeding revealing itself in his clear, hard, and uncompromising vowel tones.

“Hello, Uncle Harry.”

“Where the dickens have you been? Good God, man, it’s been years.”

“I’m sorry. It’s been a busy time, what with the funeral and everything.”

“Yes… yes… of course.” The man’s voice was suddenly serious. “How insensitive of me. I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there.”

“That’s fine. Thanks for your letter. It meant a lot to me.”

“How have you been since…?” He tailed off and looked away.

“Fine,” said Tom, placing his hand reassuringly on the man’s upper arm. “It’s been five months now and, well, you know how bad things were between us anyway. It was just a bit of a shock, that’s all.”

“I know. We were all shocked.”

The man’s face sagged in sorrow.

Tom couldn’t actually remember ever meeting Uncle Harry for the first time. He just knew that he’d always been around. He wasn’t really his uncle, although over the years he’d been much more than that to him. No, Harry Renwick had been his father’s best friend, to the extent that his father had had any friends. During the school holidays when he’d been packed off back to Geneva, Uncle Harry had been the one to offer to take him skiing, or to the movies. When he’d been sent down from Oxford and moved to Paris, it had been Uncle Harry who had set him up in a place and lent him some cash.

He was still the only person to call him Thomas, though. Tom had never known him to use diminutives. No contractions or slang or jargon, no nicknames or acronyms or verbal shorthand of any sort. The irony, of course, was that he insisted on calling himself Harry rather than Henry. Tom had never been able to figure that one out.

“Did you hear I decided to move the store back to London?”

“Really? That’s great. No, really it is. He would have been happy that you’ve kept it going.”

“Well, I’m doing this for me, not for him,” said Tom, his chin jutting in defiance. Renwick nodded and there was an awkward pause. “So what are you doing here?” asked Tom, changing the subject. “I didn’t know you were interested in naval history.”

“Well, I’m not really.” Renwick leaned his head forward conspiratorially. “But I have a client who collects this sort of stuff, so I thought I’d have a look. Keep my finger on the pulse of the market and all that rubbish you’re meant to do.”

“Do you still come to a lot of these, then?”

“No.” Renwick shook his head. “Used to. It’s not the same these days, you know. I liked it more when people were allowed to smoke. Gave the place a bit more atmosphere, a bit of an edge. You could see it, smell it. It was exciting. Not all caviar and canapés like it is now.”

He gave a dismissive wave at the finger food that was circulating through the room, the silver trays glittering under the chandeliers’ cold light like small icebergs. A man barged his way between them, shouting over the noise into his phone.

“So are you still based in London? I thought you’d moved abroad?” Tom asked as they came back together.

“No, still here, although I’ve just moved into a new place. You should come round for dinner.”

“That’s very kind but—”

“Now, let me see. I can’t do tomorrow, or the day after that. Can you do Monday the twenty-sixth?”

“Well, it’s just that—”

“No, I insist. Eight o’clock, seventy-four Eaton Terrace. Here’s my card. Don’t be late.”

“Okay,” Tom conceded. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just seen someone who owes me a favor.”

With a wink, Renwick unrolled his Panama hat, wedged it onto his head and disappeared back into the crowd, while Tom navigated his way out into the open.

Harry Renwick. Tom couldn’t believe it. Still the same after all these years, even wearing the same ridiculous suit.

He wasn’t sure if it was because he hadn’t seen him for a while and had a fresh perspective on things, but thinking about it now, the suit bothered him a little. It was only a small thing, but it occurred to Tom for the first time that there was just a hint of the deliberate to it. It had a sort of studied raggedness that seemed somehow false, like new furniture that had been painstakingly distressed to make it look old.

Tom flicked the edge of Renwick’s card a few times, thick ivory with a heavy copperplate script. He slipped it into his top pocket, dismissing his thoughts with a rueful shake of his head. Uncle Harry was Uncle Harry, just the same as always.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Finch’s eyes narrowed as he massaged the back of Short’s lifeless and pale head.

“What have you found?” asked Jennifer, stepping forward toward the table.

“It’s soft.” A spark of interest was now in Finch’s voice for the first time since he’d started the procedure.

“A fracture?”

“Certainly feels that way.” Finch nodded. “There are bits of bone moving around under my fingers, right here at the base of the skull.”

“Which would suggest he was assaulted, wouldn’t it?” Jennifer breathed excitedly.

“Possibly. Or dropped by one of the orderlies. There’s only one way we can be sure.”

Finch reached toward the instrument tray beside him and picked up a fresh scalpel. Pressing hard, he cut deeply from behind one ear, over the crown of the head, to behind the other ear, the thin blade scraping against the skull like a knife over unglazed pottery. At the noise, Jennifer bit down hard on her lower lip.

The cut had effectively divided the skin on Short’s head into a front flap and a rear flap. Tugging hard, Finch pulled the front flap down over Short’s face as if he were peeling an orange, exposing the top and front of the skull. He then peeled the back flap toward the nape of the neck, the flesh ripping away in one entire section.

Jennifer’s resolve finally snapped. Without saying a word she spun on her heels and walked swiftly out of the room. Finch smiled but didn’t look up. He picked his Stryker saw up off the tray and with a piercing screech tested that it was working, before lowering it to the now perfectly exposed hemisphere of Short’s skull.

Ten minutes later Finch emerged from the autopsy room, his white gown covered in a fine film of blood and bone, small flecks of cartilage hanging off his mask. He carefully took the mask off and threw it and his blood-streaked rubber gloves into the yellow surgical waste bin next to the door.

“You feeling okay?”

“Sure.” Jennifer was sipping water from a disposable plastic cup. “It just got a bit too much, you know… ” She nodded toward the mutilated cadaver that lay silently in the adjoining room. She was annoyed with herself for not lasting the distance, seeing it as exactly the sort of frailty that her male colleagues were always pointing out as evidence of the unsuitability of female agents for certain lines of work. That said, she would have been even angrier with herself if she’d thrown up. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up about it,” said Finch, sitting down on one of the seemingly ubiquitous orange chairs next to her. “To be honest, I didn’t expect you to last as long as you did. That last bit gets everyone, even cops who’ve pulled body parts out of car wrecks. Frankly, I’d have been more worried if you’d stayed. I filed for divorce shortly after my first wife sat through the whole procedure for the first time. I figured if she could sit through that, then it was only a matter of time before she made sure I ended up on the table myself.”

Jennifer laughed and suddenly felt a lot better.

“So what’s the verdict?”

“First impressions? He died of acute CO poisoning. I need to finish off the examination of the other organs to be sure, but the lips and the fingernails are a giveaway.”

“So you’re saying there was no head injury?” She didn’t even try to pretend she wasn’t disappointed.

“Quite the opposite. If the fumes hadn’t killed him, the head trauma would have. He’s got a massive comminuted fracture.”

“Caused by?”

“A baseball bat, an iron bar… something blunt and heavy because the skin isn’t broken.” Finch shrugged his shoulders. “Somebody left-handed, in any case.”

“How do you know that?”

“Oh, it’s an old forensic trick. Right-handed people tend to strike down on the right side of their victim’s head. Otherwise, it’s awkward and they can’t get any real force into the blow. Short’s skull has been crushed on the left-hand side. It’s a guess, but it’s an educated one.” She stored that piece of information away, although she knew it would hardly narrow the search for Short’s attackers.

“So are you saying the suicide was faked?”

“You want my professional opinion? There’s no way he could have even climbed into the car in that state. He was knocked out and put there and the exhaust fumes just finished him off. It was just window dressing. He was already a dead man.”

“You’re sure that he was hit before the fumes got to him? There’s no way that he could have got those injuries after he died?”

“No way.” Finch shook his head firmly. “The cerebral vessels had bled into the brain causing a massive subdural hematoma. That could only have happened prior to death while he still had a pulse.”

Jennifer nodded. So it was murder. This would have Corbett bouncing off the walls. She felt herself smiling and guiltily tried to suppress it.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Not at all. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and finish up.” He shook her hand, his skin cold and rubbery from the gloves.

“Doctor,” Jennifer called after him, trying to sound as casual as she could. “At this stage, I think it would be better if you don’t release the autopsy results to the family. You know how it is. Until we are sure exactly what happened, I don’t want people jumping to the wrong conclusions.”

Finch shrugged his shoulders.

“Sure. No problem.”

He helped himself to a fresh set of gloves and then strode back into the autopsy room, leaving Jennifer staring pensively at the tiled floor. This opened up a whole new angle on the Fort Knox theft — an angle she was determined to pursue.

Finch suddenly stepped back into the room, his gloves half on, and interrupted her thoughts.

“By the way, Agent Browne, you did say Short had a kid, didn’t you?”

“Yes, three of them. Why?”

“It’s just that one reason you might put someone in the backseat is that you can’t open the rear doors from the inside if the child-lock is turned on.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Liberty Street in the optimistically named Louisville suburb of Prospect had been given a particularly vicious dose of anonymity by the local planners. Cookie-cutter clapboard houses, caged off from their neighbors by galvanized wire fence, lined a wide road that spooled drearily into the distance. Cedar trees struggled awkwardly from the ragged sidewalk at municipally specified intervals, gaps visible every so often where they had finally given up their struggle to eke out an existence from the thin soil. Trash cans were chained to gateposts; cars sagged mournfully on concrete driveways.

In the distance a large water tower, supported by four improbably spindly steel legs, reared into the sky like a huge insect. It had once been painted red, although the paint had long since blistered and peeled, rust now chewing into every joint and rivet. A single name, ECKLEBERG, painted in three-feet-high white letters, circled the tank, an early advertising gimmick whose purpose had long since been forgotten. Down the road, a few kids were practicing skateboard tricks.

Jennifer stood outside the house and waited, fanning her face with her FBI badge as the sun’s rays ricocheted off the ground. To understand why Short had been killed, she had to try and understand him; who he was, where he lived. According to Short’s file, he’d joined the Mint Police after five years with the NYPD. He’d been an exemplary officer, winning the medal of honor when responding to a reported break-in at an Upper West Side pharmacy. His partner had been shot and while trying to save him, Short had returned fire, killing one suspect and wounding another. He’d been set for big things, maybe even captain one day, some had said. But apparently this incident and the unpredictable hours required of New York’s finest had finally taken their toll on Mrs. Short, who had demanded that he either find a new job, or a new wife.

Her brother was already in the Mint Police and had arranged the interviews. With his record, Short had sailed through the selection process, although it had been noted that he had been heard to complain to some of his colleagues that he was being made to swap his gun for a nightstick. He’d been given a choice of postings and had chosen Fort Knox so they’d be near his wife’s family. That was pretty much it.

She could see from the outside that the Shorts had done their best with the little they had. The symmetrical window frames had been painted light blue, to match the mailbox at the end of the driveway, the wood bubbling now with age in a few places. The porch had been recently swept, while round the side she could make out a toy-strewn backyard.

The front yard was neat and low maintenance. No trash. The curbstone had been painted with the house number, yellow against the gray concrete — 1026. The garage stood to the left, a separate building with a pitched roofline and white wooden walls to match the main house. She remembered with a half smile that she had played in a very similar yard of a very similar house with her sister, Rachel, when she was a kid. There was love here amid the ugliness.

A white patrol car with a blue stripe emblazoned down its side pulled up onto the curb and a short uniformed man with wiry ginger hair got out and nodded at her.

“Agent Browne?” he asked uncertainly, leaning over the roof, one leg still in the foot well of the car. Jennifer didn’t answer, instead just flipping her ID open and waving it at him impatiently.

“You’re late.”

“Yes, ma’am. My apologies.” He walked up to her, his hand extended, a concerned look on his freckled face. “I was way over on the other side of town when they told me that—”

“That’s okay, Officer…?” Jennifer looked down to his name badge as she was shaking his hand. “… Seeley. You’re here now.”

“Bill Seeley. Louisville Metro Police Department,” he said earnestly, his large blue eyes widening, thin lips flattening across uneven teeth, ears like a car that’s had both its doors left open.

Jennifer smiled, his fresh-faced eagerness making her feel suddenly old. She knew the type. Diligent, conscientious, and kind but unlikely ever to set the world on fire. For this part of the world, ideal. She looked up at the house behind her.

“So this is it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How long had Short lived here?”

“These past five years. Nice kids and wife. Real friendly with me and the other boys. He was an ex-cop himself, you see. Used to speak about it all the time. I reckon he missed the big city.”

“Tell me again what happened.” Jennifer’s eyes were drawn to the garage and she had to force herself to snatch them away and concentrate on Seeley’s voice.

“The eldest, Tony Jr., found him in the garage. TJ’s a smart kid. On the football team, too. He dialed nine-one-one and when the call came through I drove straight over.”

“What about Mrs. Short?”

“Debbie? At work. Tony worked shifts and they took it in turns with the kids in the summer.”

“Any other witnesses see anything?”

“Nope.”

“So what did you do when you got here?”

“Well, the kids were screaming and crying. One of the neighbors came by and she took them home with her. I opened the garage door and turned the engine off real quick, you know, to get the smoke out. Tony — I mean Mr. Short — had run a hose or something from the exhaust in through the window.”

“And you’re sure he was buckled in?”

“Oh, yeah. In the backseat, like I said. I got him out the car and tried to give him CPR, but he was gone. I did what I could.”

She could see that Seeley was still upset, perhaps thinking that if he’d got there sooner he maybe could have saved him. She knew that it was always harder if you knew the victim. It gave death a personal edge, as if you’d betrayed some unspoken agreement to look out for each other.

“Don’t worry, Officer,” said Jennifer as she turned to face him. “You did the right thing. Believe me, by the time you got here, he was already dead. There was nothing you could have done.”

He smiled gratefully.

“Well, then I radioed back in and they sent the coroner to collect the body. I would have gone to tell Debbie myself, but I had to deal with the fire, so one of the other guys went over. I heard she took it pretty bad.” He shook his head, his lips compressed in sympathy. Jennifer shot him a questioning look.

“The fire. What fire?”

“Oh, you know, these damn kids.” He nodded down the road where one of the children was nursing a sprained wrist where he had just fallen. “We get a lot of problems round here. There’s not a whole lot for them to do apart from hang round the malls or make trouble. There’s a field out back and someone had set fire to a bunch of trash.”

“On the same day?” Jennifer fired the question at Seeley, her eyes locking with his.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat nervously. “One of the neighbors was worried about it spreading, what with the hot weather we’ve been having an’ all. Why? I do something wrong?”

Jennifer didn’t answer. She was already making her way past the side of the house, through the yard and the upturned pink bicycle lying in the middle of the path, and out through the back gate. She didn’t believe in coincidences.

Seeley had been generous when he had described it as a field. In reality it was a desolate scrap of wasteland, a lunar landscape of yellowing weeds and dry brown earth dotted with rusting refrigerators and burned-out cars that separated the houses from the ugly welt of the interstate in the distance.

To the left of the gate she had just come through, in the shadow of a cypress tree, a crater perhaps ten feet across and five feet deep — one of several — scarred the earth. A large pile of ashes, charred wood, and twisted metal rose from within it like a grotesque funeral pyre. Seeley came running up behind her.

“What did I say?”

Jennifer stared at him, hands on her hips.

“Don’t you think it’s strange, Officer, that on the very day that Tony Short committed suicide, someone lit a fire twenty yards from his house?” Seeley looked at her blankly.

“Folks light fires all the time.”

“Don’t you think it’s possible that before killing himself, he decided to burn something?” Jennifer stabbed her finger forcefully in the direction of the hole. Understanding flooded over Seeley’s face.

“Oh, I geddit. It’s just that the kids here, you know, they’re always foolin’ around. But, yeah, sure, why not?”

Jennifer approached the remains of the fire and looked into it carefully. Despite what she’d just said, she had to admit that Seeley was probably right. But then again, if someone had murdered Short, it was just conceivable that they had started the fire to destroy the murder weapon or some other piece of evidence. Either way, she had to be sure.

“Give me a hand.” She jumped down into the hole and stepped into the ashes, gray and white flecks rising around her ankles like flies around fruit on a summer’s day. Seeley scrambled down to help and together they moved several large pieces of wood out of the way, until Seeley breathed in sharply.

“What the hell’s that?” Out of the ashes, a large metal object had appeared, its sides blackened, rusted and twisted where it had buckled under the heat.

“I have no idea,” said Jennifer. “Here, help me move it.”

They dragged the object out of the middle of the crater, clouds of dust and ashes billowing around their heads, making them cough and their eyes stream.

It seemed to be some sort of large metal container. It had two compartments, the upper one being nothing more than a shallow tray accessible under the top lid, while the much larger, lower one was reached from a panel on the side. Both compartments were empty.

And then she noticed it.

On one side, where the silver paint had almost all peeled away, she could just about make it out; a ghostly signature that the heat had not quite been able to erase. The U.S. Treasury seal.

The sight triggered a memory of where she’d seen a similar container before. Inside Fort Knox.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The ground had already been beaten into a muddy pulp by a steady procession of heavy trucks and earthmoving equipment. The air reverberated with the roar of diesel engines, the whine of hydraulics, and the steady chatter of an unseen pneumatic drill. In the distance a crane was being assembled while closer to the road, temporary accommodation units were being hoisted into place, the operation overseen by a group of three men wearing fluorescent jackets.

Catching sight of the yellow Bentley as it drew up, one of the men broke away from the group and hurried over to the car, holding onto his hard hat as it wobbled on his head. He waited for the chauffeur to step round and open the door before peering in.

“Mr. Van Simson. We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

“Next time I’ll book an appointment,” said Van Simson as he stepped out of the car, black Wellington boots over his pale brown trousers, a light blue sweater tied around his shoulders over a white shirt. The chauffeur offered him a bright yellow hard hat, which he ignored. “Where’s Legrand?”

“Overseeing the foundation work in sector three.” The man pointed behind him. “I can take you over.”

“No need. Get back to work.”

Van Simson indicated with his head for his chauffeur to follow him. He set off up the hill, stepping carefully over the treacherous tire furrows that in some places were over a foot deep.

His phone rang.

“Charles?” Van Simson snapped. “I hope you’ve got good news.”

“I’m afraid not. Ranieri’s dead. Has been for over a week. Murdered. Cops have been trying to keep a lid on it.”

Van Simson stopped and six feet behind him the chauffeur stopped, too, and waited.

“So where’s the coin?” Van Simson hissed.

“I don’t know,” came the nervous reply.

“You don’t know? What about the priest’s apartment?”

He set off again and the chauffeur followed.

“We already did that. There was nothing there. He must have stashed them somewhere else. The cops are all over it now.”

“Damn you, Charles,” Van Simson spat. “This is your fault. You were too slow. Someone else got to him first.” He kicked a clod of earth and it sailed through the air ahead of him.

“Darius, don’t you think you’ve taken this far enough? This coin business has got out of control.”

“When I want your advice, I’ll ask you,” Van Simson snapped back. “I’ll have taken it far enough when I have those coins.”

Van Simson stabbed the off button on the phone and stuffed it angrily into his trouser pocket.

“Damn!” he muttered to himself.

Ahead of him, two men were holding up an architectural drawing, one at each end. A large cement mixer behind them was pouring cement into a deep trench that had been cut into the soil.

“Legrand?” Van Simson called over the clatter of the mixer’s revolving drum. One of the men dropped his end of the plan and it scrolled shut as if on a spring.

“Monsieur Van Simson. I wasn’t expecting you until—”

“I know, I know.” Van Simson interrupted him with a wave. “Are you still on schedule?”

“Ahead, even,” Legrand said proudly. “We’ll have completed phase one by the end of the month. By Christmas, we’ll be ready to start erecting the steelwork.”

“And that other thing?”

“Taken care of.” Legrand nodded toward the trench.

Van Simson walked toward it, the concrete oozing against the brown earth, steel rods surging out of the glutinous gray mass. He stood at the edge for a few seconds, then bent down and scooped up a handful of soil. He paused, then scattered it onto the wet concrete, the dark earth speckling the surface.

“Well, he did say he wanted to be buried here with his ancestors.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

People walked past them, their footsteps echoing down the brightly lit basement corridor like a long, slow handclap. Important-looking people with badges and passes and files walking to and from secret meetings with secret people discussing secret things.

Jennifer knew she should feel nervous. After all, they had both spent the whole of the previous day and most of the night since she got back from Kentucky preparing for this meeting and she was stepping right into the firing line. But in a strange way she was actually looking forward to it. They had some answers. For the first time since this had all begun, they actually had some answers.

“Okay, now remember what I told you.” Corbett broke the silence. “Keep it short and stick to the script. No heroics.” He spoke quickly and quietly, his voice slightly anxious.

“Don’t worry,” she said, smiling. “I got it.”

While Jennifer had been down in Kentucky, Corbett had had a team down at Fort Knox itself going over every scrap of paper and every inch of the security system. Rigby, still in a state of shock, had let them in, unplugged his phone, locked his office door and left them to it. Their time had been well spent, since what they had discovered tied into Jennifer’s own findings.

“Do you mind?”

“What?”

She reached forward and smoothed his collar down where it had bent back on itself.

“Thanks.” He smiled. “This is going to be a tough crowd. I just want you to put in as good a show as I know you can, that’s all. These people, they don’t do excuses, just results.”

“Oh, shit!” Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Come on, you might as well tell me. What are we dealing with here? Major league assholes or minor league bureaucrats?”

“As far as I know, a bit of both. FBI Director Green, Mint Director Brady, and apparently that two-faced son of a bitch John Piper from the NSA.”

“The NSA?” Jennifer was startled. This was way below their normal radar. “What’s it got to do with them?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” said Corbett grimly. “You come across Piper before?” Jennifer shook her head. “He’s a real piece of work. Twenty years with the Agency going nowhere. Then his family donated five million bucks to the new president’s election campaign, and suddenly he’s rubbing shoulders with the Pentagon top brass and making up for lost time.”

“Do you think they want to muscle in?”

Corbett gave her a reassuring look.

“No. They just want to hear what we know. Did you get some sleep last night?”

“A bit.”

Corbett’s eyes softened just a fraction.

“You know, if this is all too much I can always reassign someone to help.”

She shot him an indignant look.

“No way. I’m doing just fine on my own. When I need a chaperone, I’ll let you know.”

He smiled.

“Just checking.”

The door opposite them opened and a man appeared, his brown hair slicked into a vertical salute, his eyes squinting out from a sunken, pallid face. He was in shirtsleeves, his charcoal pants pulled too high around his waist so that his nylon-clad ankles could be seen peeking out between his shoes and trouser legs. He smiled thinly at Bob and ignored Jennifer.

“Corbett.”

“Piper.” Corbett nodded back.

“Looks like you’re on, sport.”

Swapping a look, they both plunged into the room behind him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It was not a large room, but at fifty feet underground, it was one of the most secure in the building. The soundproofing gave it a strange, deadened feel, while the acrid smell of industrial disinfectant caught in the back of Jennifer’s throat and immediately brought back graphic memories of Dr. Finch’s mortuary down in Louisville.

Four people were sitting around three sides of a rectangular glass table, from where they had a clear view of the white projector screen that took up most of the farthest wall. Two vinyl-and-steel chairs had been set aside for them next to Director Green. The lights had been dimmed, giving everyone’s face a slightly haunted look.

“We have just been joined by Special Agents Corbett and Browne,” said Green. “As you know, Bob heads up our Major Theft and Transportation Crimes Unit. He and Agent Browne have been working this case from day one.”

Piper flashed Jennifer an uninterested look as Green said her name.

“Okay, now we’re all here, let’s get started.” A bald man with a thick neck and a boxer’s hard, worn, and squashed face was clearly in charge. He stood up and leaned across the table on his fists, the sleeves of his striped shirt rolled up above his elbows, his biceps bulging, the catch of his gold Rolex straining. He was chewing a piece of gum as he talked, pausing every so often as he spoke to work his jaws around it.

“For those of you who don’t know me,” he continued in his lazy Texas drawl, looking directly at Jennifer and Corbett as he spoke, “Ah’m Treasury Secretary Scott Young.”

Jennifer had recognized him immediately, of course. A recent presidential appointee, Young had moved from the boardroom of one of Wall Street’s most aggressive investment banks to his new position, his plain-speaking, no-holds-barred reputation going with him.

“The president has personally asked me to chair this meeting,” he continued. “To put it politely, he is mighty pissed.”

Jennifer looked at the silent faces around the table. Green was sitting on Young’s left-hand side, stuffed as normal into an ill-fitting three-piece suit, sausage fingers twirling a pen, dyed brown hair over a round red face.

Piper was to Young’s right and although Jennifer didn’t recognize the person sitting next to him, she assumed that he must be Mint Director Chris Brady. He had a wide, oval face with hollow cheeks and sagging skin and wore an ill-fitting wig. His staring brown eyes were sheltered behind thick tortoiseshell glasses. He, too, had removed his suit jacket and his dark blue polyester tie ballooned over a paler blue shirt.

As he sat there, nervously twisting the remnants of a polystyrene disposable cup between his nicotine-stained fingers, he kept reaching up and tapping his knuckles against his forehead as if trying to remember something. As the official with immediate responsibility for Fort Knox, she guessed he was feeling the heat more than the others.

“Fort Knox has been robbed, ladies and gentleman,” Young continued, still chewing away. “Not the local five-and-dime. Fort Knox. One of this nation’s most heavily guarded facilities. And we didn’t even know about it!” He slammed his fist down on the table. “Now Mr. Piper’s colleagues are telling the president that it’s only a matter of time before someone snatches one of our nukes. Ah have to say, for once Ah find it hard to disagree.” He stood up straight now, a stocky five foot nine with his shoes on. “Hell, after this, Ah wouldn’t be surprised if the president walks into the Oval Office and finds the goddamned Resolute Desk gone.”

Green looked down and shuffled his papers so as to avoid Young’s accusing stare.

“Now Ah’ve convinced the president that this is a Treasury matter. He’s agreed to leave it to me to resolve internally with FBI help, given that they were the ones who popped the lid on this in the first place. And he’s told the military and the CIA to back off. For now. But from what Ah’ve seen so far, everyone’s more concerned with covering their own asses than finding out what happened and we’re all running out of time. What Ah need now are some answers and Ah need them fast. Jack, what have your people got?”

Green nodded at Corbett, who flashed Jennifer an encouraging look. She stood up in front of the large white screen and cleared her throat.

“Gentlemen. As you know, nine days ago a rare 1933 Double Eagle was discovered in the stomach of an Italian priest in Paris.” The photos of Ranieri that Corbett had shown her a few days before flashed up on the screen behind him, together with close-ups of both sides of the coin.

“Subsequent forensic tests have shown that the coin is original and in all likelihood is one of five coins stolen from Fort Knox where they had been secretly kept in storage for the last ten or so years.”

Piper, who had been studying her performance with a smile on his face, gave a dismissive wave, picked up one of the many files spread out in front of him and shook it.

“We know all this, Browne, it’s right here in the file. Tell us something new.”

Jennifer glanced at Corbett, who winked. She knew him well enough by now to know that he was clearly thinking the same thing as her. John Piper. Major League asshole.

“Our investigation has pinpointed the likely time of the theft as between three and four A.M. on Sunday the Fourth of July,” she continued, staring defiantly at Piper as she spoke, almost willing him to take her on.

“What, just three weeks ago?” Piper shot back. “How can you be so sure?”

Corbett took over.

“An analysis of the Depository’s IT systems has shown a power surge at zero three hundred hours on that date. The power levels then remained erratic until zero four hundred hours when they returned to normal.”

The power systems check had been Corbett’s idea and after consulting the Bureau’s IT people, they had been in no doubt what the likely implications of their findings were.

“The tech guys are still looking into it, so at the moment it’s still just a theory, but according to them the power surge seems to suggest that some sort of computer virus was loaded directly into the Depository’s mainframe. It was probably programmed to wipe itself, but we’ve found some traces of code that suggest that it was designed to temporarily disable the security systems in the vault, without this being visible to the guards on the outside.”

“So my guys are in the clear then?” said Brady with audible relief. “There was no way they could have known what was going on inside, right?”

Piper had a thin smile on his face, as he turned to face Corbett.

“A theory? One week on and that’s all you’ve got, a theory? C’mon, sport, tell me you got more than that.”

“John, let’s just hear what they’ve got to say,” said Young, cautiously.

“I know, Scott. I’m just curious, that’s all. You know, like what about the cameras? Why didn’t they pick something up?” Piper asked, the same aggressive tone in his voice.

“Because there are no cameras in the vault itself, sir, just around the outside perimeter,” replied Jennifer calmly. “I believe that information is also in the file.” Piper flushed bright red. A smile flickered around the corner of Corbett’s mouth.

“The vault’s primary protection is to deny physical access, although inside it has been equipped with a combination of infrared beams, pressure pads, movement and heat sensors, and electronic contacts,” she continued, addressing her comments almost exclusively to Young and Green now, as if Piper wasn’t there. It was a dangerous game, she knew, but then she had never been very good at playing the safe, diplomatic option. If Piper was as determined to score points off her as he seemed to be, she was not going to make it any easier for him.

“None of these systems were directly tampered with and yet the coins are gone. Our view is that someone gained access to the vault, had some sort of virus temporarily disable the electronic systems and then stole the coins before the systems came back online.”

“But how did they actually get in and out?” Young had edged forward in his seat. “Ah heard the Treasury boys went over every inch of that facility and didn’t find so much as a chip in the concrete.”

Brady nodded in agreement.

“That’s right. No one could have got in or out that vault without someone or something picking them up.”

“Well… if no one could have got in, then perhaps something could have,” Corbett suggested carefully.

“What are you saying, that one of my guys let something in? That’s ridiculous,” snorted Brady. “These are highly trained men. All of them security cleared and closely monitored. There’s no way any of them would knowingly let anything in that shouldn’t be there.”

Jennifer approached the screen again and a photograph flashed up onto it. It showed a confident, smiling man, about forty years old, appealingly large brown eyes set into a strong, angular face. When she’d first seen this photo, she’d found it hard to believe that this was the same man she’d seen helplessly pinned out on Finch’s steel table like a butterfly on a card. Even now, she turned away, finding his accusing stare hard to stomach.

“This is Tony Short, one of the guards down at Fort Knox. Short was working the night of the fourth and had access to the security systems and the vault. We believe he was murdered seven days ago. Were he alive, then no doubt he could explain the sudden appearance of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in his bank account three weeks ago, one day after we think the robbery took place.”

Jennifer had run a standard bank account search using Short’s Social Security number and discovered the account in California. It had only been opened the day before the deposit was made. Short’s wife certainly hadn’t known anything about it when asked. For Jennifer, this had been the final, damning link in the chain of evidence.

“This is bullshit!” Brady exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “Why wasn’t I told any of this? I’m being set up.” Young grabbed his arm, his short fat fingers levering Brady back down into his seat.

“Sit down, Chris. No one’s blaming anyone. We just want to know what happened.” He nodded at Jennifer to continue as Brady muttered angrily.

“We also found this round the back of Short’s house.” A photograph of the metal container she had recovered from the bonfire flashed up on the screen and Young twisted his head onto one side as he tried to make out what it was. The image gave way to a close-up of the scarred and faded Treasury seal on its side.

“We think that this was how the thief got inside. A sort of Trojan horse.”

“Trojan what?” asked Piper. Jennifer ignored him.

“We’ve gone through the inventory records and it seems that on the night of the fourth, a small gold shipment turned up at the Depository at about seventeen-hundred hours, just before it closed. Short was the duty officer. In fact, he’d volunteered to have his shift changed to that day. He signed it in and placed it down in the vault.”

She paused to take a sip of water from the glass on the table in front of her before continuing.

“We think that this” — she indicated the photograph again — “was the container in which the gold was delivered. As you can see, when painted it would have looked very similar to the containers typically used for moving bullion around.”

Another photograph flashed up alongside the first one showing a silvery container of identical proportions.

“However, the container we recovered from near Short’s house is different in one vital way. It contains a separate compartment accessible from the side, here.” She pointed out the side panel on the screen. “It would have been very uncomfortable, but it is large enough for someone to get into. A small amount of gold was presumably placed in the upper compartment to make it look like the container was full in case the lid was opened.”

“This is all bullshit,” said Brady, a pleading tone in his voice now as his jacket slipped off the back of his chair and onto the floor. “It’s standard procedure to inventory every shipment in and out to make sure it’s all there.”

“And the procedure was followed to the letter,” Jennifer said firmly. “Only it was Short that was following it. According to statements from the other guards on duty that night, he insisted on personally inventorying the shipment. As the ranking officer, that was his prerogative. Once he’d okayed the contents, he had it taken down to the vault. Given that it was the Fourth of July, he told the guys who took it down that they could unpack it in the morning, so they could get home early. Short was like that, apparently. They thought nothing of it.”

“We believe,” said Corbett, picking up on Jennifer’s line, “that whoever was hiding in the container waited until a pre-agreed time when the virus had kicked in, stole the coins, resealed the cage they were in, and then got back inside the container. The next day, again according to the inventory records, another truck turned up at zero nine hundred with a new set of paperwork, claiming that a mistake had been made and that they had to take the container back to where it had come from. It all checked out and no one gave it a second thought.”

“And Short?” asked Green.

“Short? A loose end. Presumably killed to make sure he couldn’t talk, the money they paid him an acceptable loss. We found the truck burned out in a field about eighty miles away. No forensics, not even a serial number on the engine block. Whoever we’re dealing with here, sir, they’re not taking any chances.”

“What about the gold?” asked Young. “There’s billions of dollars down there, why didn’t they take any of that?”

“Mainly because if these coins are really worth forty million, then the equivalent amount of bullion would weigh about three and a half tons,” Corbett replied. “These people, whoever they are, they’re professionals. They knew exactly what they were looking for and where to find it and they didn’t let themselves get distracted.”

“Thank you, Agent Browne,” said Young. Corbett nodded at Jennifer to sit down next to him. “Okay, so we may have an idea of how they did it. But that still leaves the who. Who could have done this to us?… Any ideas?… Anyone?” He looked expectantly around the table.

“The Mafia?” Green ventured. “Or someone in the Far East, maybe the Triads?”

“Or Cassius?”

As Corbett had spoken there had been a sudden lull in the conversation and his voice had echoed across the room’s sudden calm. Young looked at him blankly.

“Who?”

“A man; more of a shadow really,” Corbett explained slowly. “He allegedly heads up an international crime syndicate that is involved in almost every aspect of the art and antiques underworld. We never get any closer than rumors. Every time we do, somebody dies.”

“I thought all this talk of a Captain Nemo figure, of some controlling mastermind in the art world had been ruled out,” Green interjected.

“None of the experts will talk about it, the insurance companies least of all. It would be too much for them to admit that one man can manipulate and influence the global art market. But people forget that art crime is a three-billion-dollar-a-year global business.”

“Three billion dollars?” Young was clearly shocked by the number.

“It’s the world’s third-largest area of criminal activity after drugs and arms dealing,” Corbett confirmed with a nod. “And the really big scores don’t come from stealing a work and selling it to a new buyer, but in stealing it and ransoming it back to the original owners. The insurers call it a finder’s fee, of course, but they’d rather offer ten percent to the thieves than pay out the full value to the owners. It happens all the time. From the consistency in how and where these jobs are financed and structured, our view is that there is a sophisticated and coordinated global operation behind the vast bulk of the high-end heists.”

“So do you think that this Cassius is involved or not?” Young leant forward in his chair. He was clearly used to dealing in yes or no, in buy or sell. He wanted an answer. Corbett, though, was noncommittal.

“A job like this would have needed a lot of planning and funding. Not many people would have the resources to pull it off. He’s definitely one of them. But even if he is behind this, he wouldn’t have actually done the job himself. People like him hire others to do their dirty work. Most often, they probably don’t even know they’re working for him. What we need to find is the person actually in the vault. That person will lead us back to whoever set the job up and hopefully the rest of the coins.”

Piper leaned toward Young and whispered something in his ear. Young, for the first time since Jennifer had been in the room, stopped chewing. He looked at Piper and whispered something back. Piper nodded and, getting to his feet, walked to the back of the room. Here, Jennifer noticed for the first time, a large mirrored panel was set into the wall. Piper tapped on the glass and then drew his hand across his throat twice. The signal made it clear to Jennifer that this whole meeting had been taped. Now, for some reason, Piper wanted it off the record. Why?

“I think perhaps it would be appropriate for Browne and Brady to leave at this point,” Piper suggested to Young. Corbett shook his head firmly.

“Whatever is about to be said, Browne should be here. She’s point on this case. Whatever I know, she knows.” Piper looked at Young questioningly, who nodded slowly. Jennifer flashed Corbett a grateful smile, her curiosity mounting.

“Wait for me outside, Chris,” said Young.

“How come she gets to stay?” whined Brady. “I’m being set up. I know it.”

“Just wait the hell outside,” Young snapped back. “And leave that file here.” Muttering under his breath, Brady slapped the file down onto the table, scooped up his jacket, and stumbled to the door.

“Okay, John. This had better be good,” said Young. Piper blew slowly through his lips before speaking.

“On July sixteenth there was a break-in in New York City at an Upper West Side apartment block. The thief rappelled down from the roof to the seventeenth floor, broke in, and stole a nine-million-dollar Fabergé egg. NYPD got lucky and found a hair sample next to the safe. They sent it to the FBI lab in Quantico to run it through their system just in case it wasn’t the maid’s. They got a hit and following the on-screen protocol alerted me immediately.”

“You’d put some sort of security trigger on this guy’s file?” Corbett asked.

“Yeah. Because as far as we knew, he died ten years ago.”

“But why you? What’s your connection?” asked Green.

“My connection? I recruited him into the CIA fifteen years ago. His name’s Tom Kirk.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Piper reached into the slim leather briefcase that was resting against his chair leg and drew out four files, one for himself and one each for Young, Green, and Corbett.

“You two will have to share.” He nodded in Jennifer’s direction.

Jennifer edged her seat closer to Corbett’s as he took the file and broke the paper band that was wrapped around it with his hand, the seal ripping right between the words TOP and SECRET. Corbett opened the file, revealing some loose-leaf black-and-white photos and a thick wedge of bound documents.

“These photos were taken yesterday in London by the CIA. They show Tom Kirk, or as we knew him, Thomas Duval. Caucasian male, thirty-five years old, five foot eleven, no distinguishing features.”

Jennifer studied the photos. Even though the images were slightly blurred, she could see that Tom was an athletic-looking man, with a strong jaw and striking, intelligent eyes.

“He has dual British and U.S. citizenship from his parents, Charles and Rebecca Kirk. Both parents are now deceased, the mother in an MVA when Kirk was thirteen and the father earlier this year in a climbing accident in Switzerland.”

Jennifer looked up and saw Corbett eyeing Piper with a strange look, as if he suspected that this was leading some place that he’d rather not go.

“Following his mother’s death, Duval was sent to live with his mother’s family in Boston, while his father moved to Geneva.”

“Boston?” Green queried. “Any relation to Trent Duval?” Piper nodded.

“He’s Senator Duval’s nephew. That was another factor in his favor when we recruited him. After high school he won a scholarship to Oxford but was kicked out after a year and moved to Paris. That’s where I met him.”

“You were stationed in Paris?” asked Corbett with surprise.

“Three years. Normal diplomatic cover,” Piper confirmed with a nod. “I met Duval through a guy we had on the staff of the Sorbonne. He had signed up for an art history course. He was ideal material for us. Young, single, highly intelligent, no real family ties, looking for something to believe in. It took a while but I reeled him in. We put him through the Farm and then gave him some more specialist training for the program we’d recruited him for.”

“Which was?” asked Green.

“Industrial espionage. Code name Operation Centaur.”

“Industrial espionage?” Green repeated in disbelief.

“Computer files, blueprints, photos of prototypes, chemical formulas — you name it. The Europeans have been accelerating their efforts to reduce their reliance on U.S. and Japanese defense, technology, and biotech suppliers for years. Their investment was beginning to tell, costing us billions of dollars of lost revenue a year, not to mention potentially undermining our own national security. Duval and others like him were the cutting edge of our efforts to ensure we didn’t lose out.”

“Jesus Christ,” muttered Green. “I thought they were meant to be our allies.”

“Duval was the best agent we had. There wasn’t a safe or a security system he couldn’t deal with. And he blended in. He spoke five languages, had read the right books, knew the right people, could get an ‘in’ to anywhere he wanted. None of the agents we’d recruited in the States could do that. It gave him a real edge.”

“So what happened to him?” Green again.

“About five years in, he went bad.”

“What do you mean, bad?” Corbett now.

“Refused to take orders, started behaving erratically, backed out of jobs. We tried to bring him in but he refused. Said he was working for himself from now on. Then he went right off the reservation and murdered his handler. After that, he just dropped off the grid.”

“But you said you thought he was dead.” Green again.

“A year later Interpol provided a DNA sample of a man the French police had shot dead trying to break into the Ministry of Finance. It matched Duval’s. By then the whole operation had been shut down anyway, so we just closed his file and stopped looking.”

“But you still tagged his DNA profile,” said Corbett. “You weren’t convinced?”

“Let’s just say I had my doubts. Duval was too good to get caught out in the open by a bunch of cops. But that’s all they were. Doubts. I tagged his profile just in case and then forgot about it until a few days ago.”

“So what the hell happened to him?” Young replaced the gum in his mouth with a fresh piece, folding it between his teeth with a single, pudgy finger.

“Interpol suspect that Duval, or Kirk as he apparently now calls himself again, has been operating as an art thief for the past ten years based out of London. Goes by the name of Felix. They rate him as the best in the game.”

“What makes him so good?” Young again.

“We trained him, for a start. And let me tell you, the guy’s a real pro. Believe it or not, most art thefts are carried out opportunistically by small-time criminals who don’t really know what they’re doing. They just see something on a wall and grab it.” Corbett nodded in a rare show of agreement. “Kirk’s smart. He focuses on jewelery that can be recut or on B-list artists that don’t attract so much publicity and so can be more easily sold. And over the years either he, or someone working with him, has somehow assembled a network of private collectors who are prepared to pay big money for the right items and don’t ask questions about where they’ve come from.”

There was a pause as everyone let this new information sink in. Then Young asked the question that was in all their minds.

“Knocking off a museum is one thing. Hitting a government installation, well, that’s a whole different ball game. What makes you think he’s involved in the Fort Knox job?”

Piper shrugged.

“I know this guy. He always liked the difficult, spectacular jobs. A job like this has got his name all over it.”

“I think we’re going to need a bit more than gut feel,” Corbett observed dryly. “You got anything solid to back this up?”

Piper nodded firmly.

“Canadian INS has a record of a Mr. Felix Duval flying into Montreal from Geneva on June twenty-eighth, one week prior to the date you’ve just given us. You think that name and the timing and the fact that his DNA showed up in New York is all a big coincidence? He hit Fort Knox, then stopped off on Fifth Avenue for a bit of shopping. He’s laughing at us.”

“Jesus, how could you guys let something like this happen? One of our own people ripping us off!”

Piper responded swiftly.

“As far as anyone outside this room is concerned, none of this did happen. So we’re going to have to handle this investigation very carefully.”

“What are you hiding, John?” Corbett asked, his head angled quizzically to one side. “What aren’t you telling us?”

“Oh, fuck!” Young, who had been frowning into the desk for the past few minutes as if trying to remember something, gasped, the color draining from his face. “You said you recruited this guy fifteen years ago, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Piper answered

“Wasn’t…?” Young raised his thin blond eyebrows into a question.

“That’s my point,” said Piper with a nod of his head.

“Wasn’t what?” asked Jennifer, looking from Young to Piper and then back again.

“Wasn’t the president the director of the CIA back then,” Corbett said tonelessly.

“Good God.” Green had gone an even deeper shade of red than normal.

“You can imagine the diplomatic shit storm if this gets out. He wouldn’t survive. I doubt many of us would.” Piper made eye contact with every person around the table, even Jennifer. “I can’t allow that to happen.”

For the first time, Jennifer saw a flicker of fear in Piper’s eyes. His family had bet big on the president winning the election and Piper was already reaping the benefits. Now, he was faced with the possibility of it all crumbling away underneath him.

“So what are you suggesting?” asked Green. “That we just drop the whole thing.”

“No, of course not.” Piper shook his head emphatically. “We can’t just drop a criminal investigation. Not without making the situation a whole lot worse. I’m just saying we gotta be real careful. If the coins lead to Kirk, then Kirk could be traced back to Centaur. We need to find a way to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Corbett insisted.

“That we offer Kirk some sort of deal. Return the four coins he still has, tell us who commissioned the theft, and promise to keep his mouth shut and we’ll wipe his file clean and forgive what he did to us ten years ago. From then on, as far as we’re concerned, Thomas Duval or Kirk or whatever he wants to call himself never existed. The whole issue of the president’s involvement just won’t come up.”

“Think he’ll go for it?” Green asked skeptically.

“Kirk plays the percentages. Always has. He must have spent every day for the past ten years wondering if the next knock at his door was going to be us finally catching up with him. This is a onetime offer to start over. Yeah, he’ll go for it.”

“Well, it sure works for me,” Young confirmed with a nod and a smack of gum against teeth. “This way, everyone wins. This administration’s looking good for a second term. Ah don’t want to be the guy who screws that up.”

“Then there’s no time to lose, Mr. Secretary,” said Corbett, his voice strained and urgent. “We recovered one coin by chance. The longer we leave it, the harder the others will be to track down. We need to get someone over to London to get Kirk on board.”

“Agreed.” Young nodded. “Who do you have in mind?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

As the plane taxied out to the runway, Jennifer settled back into her seat and closed her eyes. She had a long flight ahead and knew she ought to try and get some sleep, but her mind was racing. The moment that Corbett had suggested to Young that she be the person sent to strike a deal with Kirk kept coming back into her head.

“We should send Agent Browne, Mr. Secretary.”

There had been a moment’s silence before Piper had punctured it with a hollow laugh. Jennifer had been tempted to join in but the look on Corbett’s face had told her he was deadly serious.

“Browne. I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Corbett fired back.

“You want me to spell it out?”

“If you’ve got something to say, then I think we should all hear it.”

Piper swallowed and his eyes had flicked to Jennifer’s and then down to the table before he answered.

“We all know what happened three years ago.” He tapped his finger on one of the three files spread out in front of him. Straining to read their covers upside down, Jennifer could just about make out her name on one of them. Clearly Piper had done his homework. “We need someone we can rely on. Someone who won’t crack under pressure. We can’t take the risk of another… accident. There’s too much riding on this.”

“Mr. Secretary,” Corbett snorted. “We also all know that the inquiry into the shooting that Browne was involved in absolved her of any blame. Her performance since then, and in this investigation in particular, has been faultless.”

“It’s too much of a risk,” Piper insisted. “She’s too inexperienced.”

Jennifer willed herself not to blurt out something she might regret, although it was against every instinct she had to let Corbett fight her corner for her.

“Besides,” Piper continued, “this is Agency business, nothing to do with the FBI.”

“My view, Mr. Secretary,” said Corbett, again ignoring Piper and speaking directly to Young, “is that tactically it would be better to adopt a low-key approach. We want to win Kirk over, not scare him. Using the FBI shows that our focus is on the Fort Knox robbery, not his past misdemeanors. Using Agency personnel might suggest a broader agenda and link back to Centaur. I maintain that Browne would do an excellent job.”

“Jack?” Young nodded toward Green.

“If Bob’s happy, that’s good enough for me,” Green said, shrugging.

Young suddenly turned to Jennifer, his question startling her.

“What do you think, Agent Browne?”

“I… I think that Mr. Piper’s right,” Jennifer said slowly, measuring her words carefully. “I made a mistake and somebody died and that’s something I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life. But I’m a good agent, sir. I get results.” She threw Piper a defiant look. “You put me out there and you won’t be disappointed because I’m not a quitter. I’m a fighter.”

“Ah do believe you are.” Young turned toward Jennifer, stretched out his hand, and smiled for the first time since she had been in the room. “Make us proud, Agent Browne.”

With a final lurch the plane leapt into the air, breaking into her thoughts, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, gripping the armrests with both hands as the customary wave of panic washed over her. It was funny; this was the sort of chance she’d been dreaming about, fighting for these last few years, and now that she had it, she felt almost as apprehensive as she was excited. It was a big chance and she couldn’t afford to screw it up.

Kirk’s file was on her lap and was primarily made up of pooled intelligence reports from Interpol and various national police forces. Overall, it was pretty sketchy. Rumors of jobs he’d done, details of people he had allegedly worked for or with, but nothing certain. From one perspective it all added up to nothing, a flimsy web of innuendo, half-truths, and gossip that collapsed as soon as it was subjected to any form of detailed scrutiny.

And yet from another perspective, when viewed as a whole, it all knitted together to form the damning and compelling biography of a master criminal, a true professional, who used a choking glut of misinformation to shroud his movements and cloud the judgment of his adversaries. But how to separate the fact from the fiction, the myth from the man, when a constant haze of rumor and suspicion dogged his every step?

Corbett, though, was trying to set up a meeting with somebody he thought might help cut through the fog. Someone who’d cooperated with him before on a previous case. Her mind reached for his name. Harry something. Harry Renquist? No, Harry Renwick, that was it. According to Corbett, not only was he a coin expert who could help with the case, but as Piper had confirmed, he also happened to know Kirk well through having worked with his father. If Corbett could try and engineer a meeting between them all, it would be a chance to confront Kirk on home turf and hopefully catch him off his guard. He certainly wouldn’t see that one coming. She smiled at the thought.

As the plane leveled out and the fasten seat belts signs pinged off, she glanced around the cabin, taking in the usual assortment of diplomats, journalists, and lobbyists that formed the bulk of the daily D.C.-to-London business-class traffic.

She closed her eyes again and her mind circled back to the one thing that had been troubling her and that no one, to her surprise, had thought to ask. If this robbery had been so meticulously planned and executed, if Kirk really was so good, how had one coin ended up in a corpse on the other side of the Atlantic two weeks later?

Clearly something had gone very wrong.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Normally Jermyn Street, perched between the hustle of Pall Mall and the bustle of Piccadilly, peddled its own unique sepia-colored version of a long-vanished England. It spoke of country house picnics, of interminable games of cricket played out on village greens by players dressed in whites, of blazers and bowlers and tweeds, of a dry sense of humor and wet summers, of warm beer supped around a blazing pub fire. Of a green and pleasant land.

On this hot and dusty afternoon, however, it had been transformed into a sweaty bazaar of tourists and lunchtime shoppers that shouted and haggled and cursed and spat as convincingly as in any Middle Eastern souk. Shop windows beckoned the passing crowds like pushy merchants, proclaiming their wares with mosaics of outrageously colored and patterned shirts. Carefully arranged fountains of ties shot up into the air only to fall into still pools of silk handkerchiefs.

On the right, a beggar, slumped in the doorway to a personal shopping agency, sung and swore, his upturned hat outstretched. Most chose not to see him. On the left, the chauffeur of a large black Jaguar waiting patiently outside Wilton’s was bartering with an unsmiling traffic warden, the ticket already half written.

Walking through this evocative pageant, his jacket slung over his shoulder, Tom turned, almost without thinking, into the Piccadilly arcade, a marbled oasis of delicately curved windows crammed with shoes, vests and ties, until he found himself outside his favorite shop, on the right, about halfway up.

Tom loved watches. They had always been a passion of his. Most often, like today, he wore the 1957 Jaeger Le Coultre Memovox that his mother had left him. It was not the most valuable watch he owned, but to Tom it was certainly the most precious. That was where his fascination had started, he now knew.

He leaned forward, looking through first the left-hand, then the right-hand window, his eyes running jealously over their carefully arranged contents, laid out on green velvet like precious jewels. No prices, of course. He stood, oblivious to the people swarming past behind him, until the sudden musky smell of a woman’s perfume shook him out of his reverie.

“Beautiful, isn’t it.” Her voice was soft, the American accent unmistakable, and out of the corner of his eye he could see her motioning with her head toward the Rolex “Paul Newman” Daytona that he was looking at.

“But if you want a Rolex, you’re much better going with one of the Princes. Smoother movement and far less… obvious.” She again made a small movement with her head, pointing out the sleek lines of the Prince’s 1930s oblong stainless-steel case.

Tom stood up straight and turned to face the woman. She was beautiful. Slender with a delicate brown face and full lips, lustrous hazel eyes framed by a close-cut mass of black curly hair. The woman smiled back. He wondered for a second whether she was a pro trying to pick him up. But her shoes seemed too new, her skirt too formal. No. She was something else altogether.

“Are you a collector?” he asked warily.

“No.” She smiled. “I worked on a case once where I had to learn a bit about them.”

“A case? You’re a lawyer, then?”

“Not exactly. I work for the government. The U.S. government.”

“Right.” In a way, Tom had been preparing himself for this very moment for the last ten years — for when they finally found him. Occasionally during that time he had almost managed to convince himself that they might just never come. He realized now that he should have known better. “I take it then, that this isn’t a chance meeting, Miss…?”

“Browne. Jennifer Browne. And no, it isn’t.” She held out her hand to shake his but Tom ignored it. “Perhaps we could go somewhere and talk? I need to ask you some questions.”

“What about?”

“Not here.”

The initial shock past, Tom’s mind was racing as he considered what to do. Run perhaps, although the two bulky figures pretending to window-shop at either end of the arcade and blocking his escape route would complicate that option. Or maybe, if he really was going to move on, try and settle this once and for all. He couldn’t keep running forever.

“I know a place,” he muttered eventually. “It’s not far.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Tom and Jennifer walked down Piccadilly in silence, allowing themselves to be carried along by the smooth muscle of the masses, red buses trundling cheerfully past. Here and there, black umbrellas, incongruous in the summer sun, were held above the crowds by tour reps, makeshift buoys for their youthful charges to navigate to their next “must-see” destination.

Tom had a much more willowy and delicate build up close than the photos Jennifer had seen had suggested. He walked with careful steps, his movements precise and controlled like those of a cat negotiating a narrow ledge, expending the exact amount of energy and control to get where he wanted. He was also, she had to admit, a handsome man, his high cheekbones and square jaw giving his face a slightly sculpted look, his eyes alert and an incredibly deep blue.

Reaching the Criterion restaurant at Piccadilly Circus, hamburger wrappers and Spanish schoolkids swirling around their feet, they cut themselves adrift from the crowds and plunged inside. Here, the noise of the traffic gave way to an animated babble that bounced gaily off the restaurant’s gaudy mosaic walls and ceilings in five different languages. A harassed-looking Italian waiter showed them to a table and took their order — a vodka tonic for Tom, a mineral water for Jennifer.

There was a silence until Tom spoke.

“So, Agent Browne? It is Agent Browne, isn’t it?” The waiter reappeared with their drinks.

“Special Agent Browne, actually. FBI.” Tom tilted his head as if he hadn’t quite heard right.

“FBI?”

“Uh-huh.”

He sipped his drink, looking pensive. The ice settled, caressed by the soft fizz of the bubbles.

“Aren’t you a bit out of your jurisdiction here, Special Agent Browne?”

“Oh, when it comes to the big fish we stretch the net pretty wide these days.”

“Is that right?”

“You see, I’m here to help you,” she said firmly.

Tom sat back and pushed his glass away from him.

“I didn’t realize I needed helping.”

“Most people don’t until it’s too late. You’re in a lot of trouble, Mr. Kirk.”

“That’s news to me.”

“There are some old friends of yours back at Langley who are just dying to catch up with you.”

Tom shrugged.

“Langley? Sorry, that’s not ringing any bells.”

“And I’m sure the NYPD would love to discuss how one of your hairs ended up on the floor of that apartment you dropped in on ten days ago.”

Jennifer studied his face for a reaction, some glimmer of realization, of guilt, however slight. But she saw nothing.

“You’re wasting your time.”

“Don’t screw around.” Jennifer raised her voice ever so slightly. “I know what you do, who you are… Felix or Duval or whatever you call yourself these days.”

There was a pause as Tom looked at her, his face inscrutable, his right hand moving his glass around in tight wet circles where the condensation had run down onto the table.

“Why are you really here, Agent Browne?”

“I’ve come to offer you a deal.”

Tom gave a wry smile.

“That’s easy, then. Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it.”

“You sure? If they’ve sent me all the way over here, it’s because they’re serious. Maybe you should hear me out.”

“What for? More lies? You’ve got nothing I could ever want. Have a good flight home.”

“I’m talking about a fresh start, Mr. Kirk. I’m talking about wiping your file clean.” Tom had stood up to leave but Jennifer’s urgent tone seemed to stop him in his tracks. “The CIA forgets about you. We forget about you. The last fifteen years just never happened. Think about it.”

Tom studied her for a few moments and then sat back down.

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch. We just want the coins back.”

He frowned.

“The coins?”

“And the name of whoever paid you to steal them. You do that and you’ll never hear from us again.”

Tom nodded thoughtfully and resumed the circling with his glass, slowly extending the edges of the wet patch on the table.

“There’s only one problem with your deal,” he said eventually.

“What’s that?”

“I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play games.” Jennifer spoke with an icy edge to her voice now. “You want me spell it out for you? Fine. We know you took the coins and we know how you did it. We want them back and the name of whoever sent you. Stand in our way and now that we’ve found you again, we’ll make life very difficult for you. That’s a promise.”

“No, let me spell it out for you.” The people at the neighboring table looked over disapprovingly from under their baseball caps as Tom’s voice rose until he was almost shouting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And let me give you an update. I’m out of the game now. Permanently. That’s the way it is, whether you believe me or not. Now, you think you got something on me, you go ahead and play that card. But I’m not taking the fall for something I know nothing about. Screwing me over will not help you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

Jennifer considered him for a moment. She had always been able to sense when people were lying. She looked for small things; involuntary twitches, hand movements, the eyes mostly. To Jennifer’s surprise, all the signs that she could read pointed to Tom telling the truth. How could that be right? Even so, she continued along the lines Corbett and she had agreed upon.

“So you’re refusing our deal?”

“What deal? I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing to deal.” There was a pause as he stared at Jennifer angrily. “Are we done here?”

Jennifer nodded. She’d rattled him. That was all they could reasonably expect at this stage. As to whether he would come round as the consequences of what she’d just outlined and the attractiveness of the deal sank in, only time would tell.

“For now. But I’ll be seeing you soon.”

“You know what, Agent Browne? Don’t bother.”

Tom got up, drained his glass, and marched toward the exit. As he approached the revolving door the same two men who’d been loitering in the arcade earlier stood up from where they had been sitting and squared up to meet him. Tom looked from one to the other and then swiveled round to face Jennifer. They stared at each other for a few moments over the heads of the crowded restaurant, before she signaled with a wave of her hand that they should let him pass. The two men parted like a set of iron gates.

As Tom disappeared out onto the street, Jennifer reached for her phone. Corbett answered on the second ring, in his usual terse manner.

“How did it go?”

“As we thought. Deny, deny, deny. He’s certainly convincing.”

Corbett snorted.

“Oh, yeah? Well, I figure it’s time to light a fuse under Kirk’s lying ass.”

Jennifer frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve got a date tonight.”

Her eyes widened in understanding.

“You’ve managed to set something up with your contact?”

“I didn’t even have to ask. When Renwick heard that one of my people was in town, he mentioned that he was having someone over for dinner tonight and then asked whether you’d like to join them. Guess who the other guest is.”

“Kirk?” Her voice betrayed her excitement. This was even better than they’d hoped.

“That’s right. Turns out he invited him over last week. Let’s see how convincing Kirk is when you show up right in his backyard.”

“Does Renwick know why we’re here?”

“No. I told him that we were investigating something and needed his help again. I want you to take the coin along with you tonight. If anyone can help us narrow down the list of people who are behind the Fort Knox job, it’s him. Tell him what you need to, but try and keep the specifics to a minimum.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, and we’ve set something up with Van Simson tomorrow at his place in Paris. Two-thirty. It’s the only slot he could do. Can you make it?”

“Sure. I’ll get the embassy people here to sort some transport out. It won’t be a problem.”

“Great. Call me in the morning and let me know how tonight goes.”

She returned her phone to her purse, smiling. Times like this reminded her why, despite all the John Pipers in the world, she still loved her job.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Harry Renwick lived on a wide, tree-lined street. Broad brick houses with tall windows and high ceilings climbed four stories into the sky. Station wagons and SUVs nestled bumper to bumper with weekend Ferraris and Porsches.

Tom had pulled on his best suit for the occasion, a merino-and-cashmere mix that was light and yet sat well on his square frame. In the end, knowing Renwick as he did, he had decided to wear a tie, although the unfamiliar collar rasped against his neck. Suits weren’t really his thing.

He stepped out of the cab and checked his wrist, a Tank from the 1920s, which Tom still regarded as Cartier’s best period. It was gold and solid and squat, the Roman numerals elegantly spaced out on the oblong face. It was eight o’clock. He was right on time.

“Come in, come in,” exclaimed Renwick as he threw the door open, Tom’s face reflecting in its gleaming black paint and polished brass.

Renwick was still wearing the same white linen suit, although he had taken the jacket off, revealing his shirt’s threadbare elbows. Tom shook Renwick’s hand and then handed over the bottle he was holding as he stepped onto the hall’s marble checkerboard floor.

“My dear boy!” Renwick exclaimed, his face beaming as he unwrapped it. “A Clos du Mesnil and an ’85, too. You really shouldn’t have.”

“I know,” said Tom, smiling. He was feeling much more composed now after the initial surprise of that morning’s events. More than anything now he was intrigued. The FBI’s involvement suggested that the Agency was not behind this approach, which had to be good news. And the fact that they hadn’t just had him picked up suggested that they needed something from him that might give him some room for maneuver. Even if he still didn’t really have a clue what they wanted.

“Well, let’s get this opened right away,” Renwick continued as he led Tom through to the sitting room. “Now I hope you don’t mind, but I invited someone else to join us tonight. Thomas, meet Jennifer Browne; Jennifer, meet Thomas Kirk.”

Tom had frozen in the doorway as he had glimpsed Jennifer rising from her chair on the other side of the room. He glared at Renwick angrily. What was going on? Was Harry working with the Feds?

“Good evening, Mr. Kirk.” She glided toward him as if they’d never met before, a cloud of Chanel No. 5 in her wake.

Tom gave her a tight smile as they shook hands.

“Miss Browne.”

“Come, come. No need to be so formal. We’re all friends here,” Renwick chided. “Jennifer works at the FBI in America for a friend of mine. Apparently he thinks I might be able to help on a case they’re investigating. It’s awfully exciting.” Renwick grinned. “Anyway, she’s only in town for a few days and I thought you two might get on.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Uncle Harry,” said Tom, forcing a smile and feeling slightly guilty. Perhaps he’d been a bit too quick to judge Renwick. It was more likely that he was an unwitting pawn in whatever game the FBI was playing rather than their willing accomplice.

“Drinks, anyone?” Renwick exclaimed. “How about you, my dear, what will you have? A glass of champagne? Excellent.” Renwick removed the foil wrapper and the wire cage from the bottle and gently levered the cork out until it came free with a repressed hiss.

“Glasses? Bugger. Hold that, will you, Thomas, and I’ll go and get some. And an ice bucket, of course. Never forget the ice bucket.” Handing the open bottle to Tom, Renwick swept off to the kitchen.

“Even for you guys this is pretty low,” Tom hissed, rounding on Jennifer.

“You think this is some sort of game?” Jennifer shot back indignantly. “Just so you know, this is your life from now on. Wherever you go, wherever you turn, we’ll be there. Your world’s about to get a whole lot smaller.”

“You got a problem with me, fine. But Harry’s on the outside. He’s got nothing to do with any of this. I won’t let you drag him into my life.”

“He’s not even really your uncle, is he? Your whole life is a lie.”

“That’s irrelevant.” Tom took a step toward her until they were only a few feet apart. “I’m warning you, keep him out of it.”

“Well, if you play ball with us, it won’t ever get to that, will it?” Jennifer glared defiantly into Tom’s eyes.

Renwick strode back into the room, clutching glasses and a champagne bucket.

“Well, you two certainly seem to have broken the ice.” He chuckled. “Excellent.”

At the sound of his voice they both jumped apart and stood awkwardly as Renwick poured them each a glass. He then ushered them to the right-hand sofa while he sat on the one opposite. In between them, a low blue silk divan covered in auction catalogs served as an impromptu coffee table, while the large marble fireplace had been filled with dried flowers.

“Business must be good,” said Tom, straining to make his voice sound relaxed and normal, indicating the room around them.

Although simply furnished with modern mushroom-colored sofas and sea-grass matting, the sandstone walls had been carefully hung with a collection of paintings and sketches — an Old Testament prophet, a beatific Madonna clutching a cherubic Christ child, a papal portrait, its subject frozen in martial pose, and a mythical scene of bacchanalian abandonment, to name but a few. Not to mention, of course, that Tom had immediately recognized the hand of van Eyck, Rembrandt, and perhaps even Verrocchio in several of the works. It was a staggering collection that would have sat well in the Renaissance gallery of any major museum.

“What, this? Most of it’s new to me, actually,” Renwick said, looking around him dispassionately. “I inherited the house from a relative a few months ago, gave it a lick of paint and bought some new furniture. He was in shipping or something. Made a fortune after the war. Anyway, I don’t know how he lived here because it was full of junk. I sold most of it but some of it was worth keeping.”

“I can see that,” said Tom, appreciatively.

“In fact, I’ve got a chap coming round here tomorrow to look at that one there.” He pointed at the papal portrait at the far left side of the room. “It’s always been attributed to the school of Titian. But I have a suspicion that it may have been painted by Titian himself.”

“Really?” Tom stood up and approached the painting with an appreciative look.

“And what are they?” Jennifer pointed at the luridly painted masks that had been hung over the mantelpiece.

“Ah. Now they are mine.” Renwick’s voice was immediately energized. “I collect them. They’re Japanese Noh masks.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Noh was a form of Japanese theater that emerged in the Muromacho period,” Renwick explained. “The plots are always simple and serious and very symbolic, the costumes elaborate. The masks are worn to show stylized characters or emotions, much like in ancient Greek theater, and also to let the same actor play several characters. I’ve been collecting these since I was a boy.” Renwick’s eyes shone brightly, his voice vibrant.

“How old are they?”

“Well, the oldest one I have is that one.” He stood up to point at a white mask decorated with golden horns and bulging eyes, its mouth drawn into a white-teethed demonic grin. “That’s from about 1604 when Noh was adopted as the official theater of Japan under the protection of the ruling samurai class and the shogun. The others date from the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”

Tom let his eyes flick over some of the other masks. A smiling mandarin, eyes scrunched in laughter, a neatly clipped beard and moustache decorating his dimpled chin. A worried-looking Japanese youth, forehead creased, hair thinning, eyes narrowed in surprise.

“Now I hope you don’t mind, my dear,” Renwick boomed to Jennifer. “But we’re eating in the kitchen. The dining room still looks like a bomb site.”

He showed them into the kitchen, a wide stone-flagged room with a rustic-looking wooden table in the middle of it, set for three. French windows along the right-hand wall gave out onto the garden and these were slightly ajar, allowing the smell of the honeysuckle that grew up the side of the house to seep in. Granite-topped cherrywood units ran along the left and facing walls, punctuated by a gas range — a huge mass of cast iron and dials and pipes — and a deep Belfast sink, which was already piled high with pans and dishes.

They sat down, Renwick at the head of the table, Tom and Jennifer opposite each other.

“Now, if I’d known earlier you were coming I would have done something special,” Renwick apologized.

“This looks wonderful,” Jennifer protested.

Tom looked at Jennifer angrily. He knew that this intrusion into his life was some trick, some underhanded way of showing him just how far they could go — would go — to get what they wanted.

She was wearing a fitted black jacket over a white blouse, her long legs sheathed in flowing black silk trousers, the material fluttering around her ankles. Tom noticed that as she talked the tip of her nose twitched in sympathy to the movement of her lips, like a small rabbit.

Despite everything, that made him smile, which only infuriated him further.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Several hours later, Jennifer’s cheeks glowing a little from the wine and the heat from the stove, they went back through to the sitting room for coffee. Once they had all helped themselves, Renwick settled back into the sofa and smiled benevolently at Jennifer, who had parked herself next to him and opposite Tom.

“So, Jennifer. Robert said that I might be able to help with something? Confidentially, of course.” Jennifer nodded gratefully and put her cup down. She had been careful to drink only one glass of wine in anticipation of this moment, and although she had spoken to Renwick for almost the whole meal, she had felt Kirk’s angry eyes on her throughout.

“Agent Corbett — I mean Robert — said you were the person to talk to about numismatics in Europe.” Her tone was businesslike now.

“He did, did he? Well, that’s very kind. I suppose it is true to say that it’s my area. I was a dealer for years and years. That’s how we met, you know, on another of his cases several years ago now. I’ve diversified a bit recently into other areas, but one of my clients is a fanatical collector, so I still have to keep up with things.”

Jennifer hesitated. This was a careful balancing act. While she wanted the benefit of Renwick’s insight, Corbett had reminded her she couldn’t afford to give him, a civilian, all the details on the theft. And yet this was also an opportunity to crank up the pressure on Kirk by showing him that they knew exactly what had happened and then seeing how he reacted. It was a fine line to tread. She reached into the zipped compartment of her purse and extracted the protective envelope containing the gold coin, handing it to Renwick.

“Good God.” Renwick gasped. The coin dropped from his hand to the floor and disappeared out of sight. He fell to his knees, apologizing to Jennifer, as he reached under his chair.

“I’m terribly sorry — please forgive me — don’t know what came over me,” he stuttered. Jennifer smiled, noticed Tom looking on with curiosity. He had barely moved in his seat.

“It’s fine. Don’t mention it.”

“It’s just that it was such a shock,” he explained, once the coin was safely back in his hand and he had settled back down. “I’ve never seen one before.”

“Not many people have,” Jennifer said helpfully.

“Seen what?” Tom asked, his forehead wrinkled, straining to see what he was holding.

“A 1933 Double Eagle. A phenomenally rare coin,” Renwick explained to Tom, handing him the coin.

“A twenty-dollar coin,” Tom said, examining it. “Gold. Is it valuable?” He flipped the coin in the air, caught it and then placed it down on the blue silk divan.

Jennifer snorted her disbelief at Tom’s question.

“Only about eight million dollars,” Renwick said excitedly.

“Christ!”

Tom sat forward and picked the coin up again, a respectful look on his face now. Jennifer’s brows furrowed. Either Tom was a very convincing actor or else…? Renwick interrupted her thoughts.

“My client, you know the one I mentioned earlier, he has one. Bought it at auction recently. I’ve never seen it, of course. He keeps it locked up in Paris. I thought that his was the only one, though.”

“If your client is Darius Van Simson, then officially, it still is.”

“And unofficially?” He looked at her quizzically over the top of his coffee cup.

“Unofficially, the U.S. Treasury did hold on to a few other coins. Only they have been… mislaid.” She stared at Tom as she said this and again was confused by his reaction. Sudden understanding swept across his face as if the pieces of a puzzle had just fallen into place. As if he’d only just realized what this was all about.

“Mislaid?” Renwick took his glasses off and flashed her an indulgent smile. “Where were they last seen?”

“This coin was found in Paris. We are assuming that the others are also in Europe.”

“I see.” Renwick rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You know, Van Simson will be furious when he hears about this.”

“I thought we’d agreed that he won’t,” said Jennifer sharply. “Or at least if he does it’ll be from me. I’ve an appointment with him tomorrow.”

“My dear girl, I won’t breathe a word. But the art world is a very small place, just ask Thomas. Van Simson likes to keep on top of things and he pays a lot of money to get this sort of information first. If he doesn’t know already, he soon will. And believe me, when you pay eight million dollars for a coin that is supposedly unique, you don’t react too well to people pulling one out of their handbag like confetti.”

“Do you know him well?” asked Tom.

“Not really. As I said, he’s a client. I look out for coins for him. And I got him some paintings, modern stuff mainly. But that’s about it.”

“What I need to know,” Jennifer asked, mindful of steering the conversation back to the coin, “is who the likely buyers might be here in Europe. Who would pay to own such a piece.” Tom was studying Renwick as if he was as interested in his answer as she was.

Renwick sucked his cheeks in.

“I really couldn’t say. Your best bet is probably to identify the winning bidders at the large coin auctions over the past few years and focus on them. The most active buyers in the market tend to be institutional. You know, museums, trusts, corporates. Van Simson is the only private collector I know of who could come close to affording something like that.”

“So how would you sell something like this, if you were to have… let’s say… stolen it?” Jennifer fixed Tom with a stare as she said this but he returned it unblinkingly.

“Stolen it?” Renwick paused. “Hmmm. Well, something like that would almost certainly have a buyer lined up before it was stolen. It’s not the sort of thing you can just sell on the open market.”

Jennifer considered the thought that had struck her on the plane flying over. For the coin to have ended up back in FBI hands, somewhere along the line the plan had clearly gone wrong. Maybe this explained it.

“But what if you didn’t have a buyer? What would you do then?”

Renwick shook his head.

“It’s unlikely, but the obvious step would probably be to try and find a fence. You know, someone who would take it off your hands and then try and sell it themselves through their own network.”

A fence? Jennifer nodded slowly. It made sense. Ranieri was a fence. Maybe that was how he’d ended up with the coin. For some reason there’d been no buyer and Ranieri had been brought in to help. But by whom?

“Or an off-site?” Tom suggested.

“Yes, that’s possible, too, I suppose,” said Renwick, rubbing his chin again. “It’s possible, but very risky. Especially these days.”

“An off-site?” Jennifer looked questioningly at each of them. “What’s that?”

“It’s a sort of black market auction,” Tom explained, Jennifer noticing a slight edge to his voice, as if he were forcing himself to be civil. She was glad. She wanted him to feel uncomfortable.

“What do you mean?”

Renwick answered for him.

“Any major artist has a catalogue raisonné, a book put together by experts showing photos and descriptions of every work by the artist in question together with details on the rightful owners. The first step for any respectable gallery owner or auctioneer when asked to sell an item would be to consult these books to see where the piece in question had originally come from. The second step would be to consult the Art Loss Register in London, which records all reported art thefts on its system. Together, they make an open sale of a stolen quality piece almost impossible.”

Nodding, Tom took over.

“One alternative is an off-site, an opportunity to get some of the benefits of an auction without the publicity. There’s a very selective list of approved buyers who get told when and where it’s happening at the last minute. Used to happen a lot, but less so now. The cops have wised up.”

Jennifer nodded and then turned to Renwick.

“What would be really useful, then, is to run through who the likely buyers might be, both at regular auctions and these off-sites.”

“Yes, of course. I’d be happy to help. When would you like to do that?” Jennifer gave a sheepish smile. “Now?” he asked with surprise.

“I’m still running on U.S. time.” Her tone was apologetic. “It’s only” — she snatched a look at her watch — “five-thirty in the afternoon back home. I’d sure appreciate it if we could make a start tonight. I’m on a pretty tight schedule my end.”

“Fine. Of course, if that’s what you want. I’m somewhat of a night owl myself so I’m more than happy to stay up and knock it on the head.”

“Well, in that case, I’m off,” said Tom, yawning. “I’ve got an early start tomorrow. Another shipment coming in. And you two clearly don’t need me anymore.”

Renwick phoned for a taxi. It arrived five minutes later and he showed Tom to the door, Jennifer standing behind him.

“Good-bye, Agent Browne,” said Tom. “And I hope you find your coins.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we will.” She smiled tightly. “And whoever took them.”

Renwick walked Tom out to the taxi.

“Bye-bye Tom, and do keep in touch.”

“I will, I promise.” The two men hugged each other.

“By the way, isn’t she a great girl?” Renwick whispered quietly. “Full of fire. And beautiful, too. Maybe you should make a move.”

“Make a move? She’s really not my type,” said Tom, laughing. “And in any case, it was you she wanted to meet. You’re the coin expert.”

Tom shook his hand again and climbed into the taxi.

Waving him good-bye, Renwick closed the front door and turned to face Jennifer.

“Right. Let’s get cracking. If you go back into the sitting room and help yourself to a drink I’ll pop upstairs and get my files. This should only take an hour or so.”

“Great.”

Renwick walked upstairs and into his book-lined study, sitting down heavily in the leather chair that he pulled out from under the front of the large mahogany desk. For several minutes he sat there, thinking, until he pulled the phone toward him, lifted the receiver out of the cradle, and dialed a number.

“Yes?”

“It’s me.”

“What is it?”

Renwick sat back in the chair and put his feet up on the desk.

“You’ll never guess what I’ve got downstairs.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

“Did you find the port?”

Renwick had reappeared at the sitting-room door and Jennifer turned round to face him, reluctantly tearing her eyes away from the oil painting she had been studying.

“Water’s fine for me, thanks.” She held up her glass to show she had helped herself.

“Very sensible. Let’s do this in the kitchen, shall we? Give us a bit more room to spread out.” He nodded toward the dark blue folder he was clutching under one arm.

Jennifer followed him through to the kitchen and helped him clear a space on the table, piling plates and glasses high on the work tops, the sounds of expensive china and cutlery echoing around them.

“Leave all that, my dear,” Renwick boomed as Jennifer began to clear some of the plates into the trash. “The housekeeper will clear it away in the morning. Now, why don’t you sit yourself down there and I’ll pull a chair up next to you.” He pointed at a chair on the left-hand side of the table and dragged another over next to it. Jennifer sat down.

“So what is all this?” she asked as Renwick began to empty the contents of the file onto the table’s coarse wooden surface.

“Press cuttings, newsletters, sale reports. Anything relevant to the European coin and medal markets. I have a company that collates them all for me as well as for other areas I work in. Helps keep me up to speed. Anyway, between all this we should be able to come up with a list of names and companies you can look into.”

“You know, I really appreciate you helping me on this. Especially this late.”

Renwick beamed at her.

“My dear, it’s my pleasure. Really, it is.”

He sat down and then immediately stood up.

“I’m hot. Are you hot?” Without waiting for an answer he moved over to the French windows that gave onto the garden and threw them open. A cool breeze slid into the room. Renwick sat down again.

“I hope you didn’t mind Thomas being here as well?” he said with a smile.

“No, not at all,” she replied, careful not to sound too enthusiastic. The last thing she wanted was Renwick realizing that they were just using him to get to Tom.

“It’s just that Robert told me that you were only in town for a few days and I’d already invited Thomas over last week. He didn’t think you’d mind. And it did occur to me that Thomas might have some useful input for your investigation as well. I hope that wasn’t presumptuous.”

“Of course not. Although I’m intrigued. What is it that Mr. Kirk — I mean Tom — does for a living that made you think he could help?”

“Ah!” Renwick laughed. “Many people have asked themselves that same question. From what he tells me, and that’s not much, he’s some sort of antiques dealer. They’ve always been his thing, ever since he was a child. I suppose he got that from his parents. Anyway, he knows the business inside out, hence why I thought he could help.”

“Have you known Tom for long, then?”

“Since he was fourteen, at least. I met Charles, his father, after he moved to Geneva. Tom would turn up every so often at the holidays.”

“He didn’t live at home?” Jennifer already knew the answer to this question, but then she couldn’t let Renwick realize that the CIA had a file on Kirk an inch thick.

“No. His mother, Rebecca, was killed in a car accident when he was about thirteen. It turned out that Thomas was driving.”

“Oh.” Jennifer nodded in understanding. Her father often used to let her sit on his knee and drive the short distance from their house to the first main intersection. It was a game that in this case had clearly gone horribly wrong.

“Charles took it very badly — never really recovered, if truth be known. Thomas was sent to live with his mother’s family. I think Charles found it too painful to have him around.”

“That must have really screwed him up. Losing one parent and then being rejected by the other.”

“Yes.” Renwick paused. “You know, he never really talks about his childhood now, but he did once tell me a story that always stuck with me. One day at junior school — or whatever it is you Americans call it — Thomas saw two boys stealing a purse belonging to one of the teachers. He didn’t say anything because he’d only been there a few months and it was hard enough for him as a new pupil at a new school in a new country without attracting even more attention to himself. Apparently, these two pupils somehow knew that Thomas had seen them and decided to put the money they’d taken in his locker before tipping off the teacher. She opened his locker in front of the whole class and there was her purse, right where these two boys had put it.

“They suspended him for a few weeks and no matter what he said, no one ever believed he was innocent. Charles least of all. Not even when the same two pupils were caught shoplifting and the police then found a stash of stolen items in one of their rooms. Thomas was always guilty in his father’s eyes, and I’m not sure he ever forgave him for that.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Jennifer, arching her eyebrows at the irony of Tom, having been wrongly accused of theft, actually becoming a thief.

“Anyway, that was all a long time ago now.” A pause. “We should get cracking. Let’s split this up.” He roughly divided the wedge of papers into two equal piles. “You go through that one, I’ll go through the other.”

For the next forty-five minutes they both read through their papers, the silence broken only by the noise of their pens as they took notes and the occasional question from Jennifer or comment from Renwick as he pointed something out to her. He had been right. It was a small market, the same names, some institutional, some private individuals, showing up several times over. Jennifer kept score, adding a little line next to each name every time it was mentioned. Van Simson had already scored twelve, double his closest competitor. Looking over, she could see that Renwick had amassed a similar score for him.

She paused mid-scribble.

“What was that?”

Renwick didn’t look up.

“What was what?”

“That noise. It sounded like it came from the garden.”

“Oh.” Renwick looked up, smiling. “Probably the neighbor’s cat culling the local mouse population.”

Jennifer nodded, looked out the window and then back down at her notes. A few moments later her head snapped toward the open window again.

“That’s no cat.”

“What?”

“I said, that’s no cat.” Jennifer had got up and moved over to the window. “Too big. And there’s more than one, too.”

“Are you sure?” Renwick stood up, a concerned look on his face.

“Quick, turn the lights out,” Jennifer whispered. Renwick stumbled over to the light switch and flicked it off, his forehead crumpled into a worried frown. Jennifer edged her head round the window’s edge so that she could see into the garden. She immediately jumped back and pressed herself to the wall.

“Two men,” she whispered. “Making their way toward the house.”

“What the blazes do they want?” Renwick whispered back, his voice suddenly afraid.

“I don’t know, but I figure we shouldn’t wait around to find out. Let’s get outside and call the cops.”

“What about all my paintings?”

“You’re insured, aren’t you?” Renwick nodded. “So leave them. These guys look like they mean business.”

They both tiptoed out of the kitchen and made their way to the front door. Jennifer unbolted it.

“Now remember… ” she said as she pulled it open.

She never finished the sentence.

“Watch out!” shouted Renwick.

Instinctively she raised her arms in front of her face and a fist glanced harmlessly off her elbow. She could tell from how quickly it had come that whoever it was had been waiting for the door to open and she knew then that the other two men must have been deliberately sent round the back to flush them out onto the street.

She only had time to register that her assailant was a short, stocky white man, before she had to dodge his follow-up punch, his knuckles slamming instead into the door’s polished surface and making him yelp. She seized the opportunity, chopping him in his throat with the edge of her hand and then kicking him hard in the groin. He immediately dropped to his knees with a groan and sagged forward, his face bright red as he choked and gurgled, unable to catch his breath.

“’Nuff, bitch.”

Jennifer jerked her head round to see the two men who’d come in through the garden standing in the hallway, the one on the left holding a gun to Renwick’s head. Like the other man, they were also white, although their forearms were dark with matted hair and swirling tattoos. Both wore jeans, shiny black bomber jackets and bright white sneakers.

“Pull another move like that and we off granddad. Got it?” Renwick stared at her, his head tilted to one side where the man was pressing against his temple with the gun’s muzzle, clearly terrified.

“Fine.” She raised her hands. “Take what you want.”

The man on the right stepped forward, his mouth thin and purple from poor circulation, his right ear pierced in three places, his nose bent like a boxer’s.

“Oh, we will, sweetheart, don’t you worry.”

“Get out of my house, you scum,” Renwick shouted, his eyes fierce and proud. “I know who sent you and you can tell him from me that—”

The man pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans, turned round, aimed it at Renwick’s chest and fired.

“Harry!” Jennifer called out as Renwick collapsed onto the stone floor, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

The man she had knocked to the ground struggled to his feet behind her, still wheezing, the fingers of his right hand now gripping a thick brass knuckle.

“You fucking bitch,” he snarled as he struck her with a big looping punch to the back of her head.

Jennifer saw the marbled floor accelerating toward her as she fell, but blacked out before she hit it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The sun had barely risen when the first van pulled up, the street still empty apart from the two gray pigeons chasing each other across the sidewalk. The driver jumped down to the ground. Pulling on his black helmet, he tapped twice on the van’s side. Almost immediately the side door slid back on its well-oiled runners and the seven men inside stepped out, their gloved hands clasping their gleaming Heckler & Koch MP5s.

They were all dressed identically, multipocketed combat trousers tucked into ankle-high boots, the long laces zigzagging up their shins before being wrapped several times around the top of the boot and then tied off. A Glock 17 self-loading pistol was velcroed to each person’s left leg while handcuffs, extra ammunition, and CS gas canisters hung around their waist. Their black bulletproof vests made their chests bulge. Nobody spoke.

A second van drew up and a further six men erupted onto the street, helmets and goggles already on. A tall man in civilian clothes with rounded shoulders and thin wrists stepped slowly out of the passenger seat of the second van and looked down the street with quiet satisfaction at the armed men standing with their backs pressed to the sides of the vans. His moment had finally come.

“Daniels,” Detective Sergeant Clarke whispered through his teeth. One of the men peeled off from the others and walked over, the insignia of the Metropolitan Police’s elite SO19 armed response unit clear on his shoulder.

“This man is probably armed and certainly dangerous. You go in and you go in hard. Shoot him if you have to. And remember, I want to make the arrest in person. This is my collar, not yours.”

Mike Daniels grimaced.

“Why don’t you let us worry about who we shoot and you worry about the paperwork and not getting in our way.” He turned and walked back to his men, who gathered round him in a tight circle. Clarke stood fuming, only grateful that no one had overheard their exchange.

In a low voice, Daniels gave some quick instructions, before looking over at Clarke and nodding. Two men took up positions opposite the building, leaning on the hood of each van. The other twelve men trooped silently over to the shop entrance in close formation.

“Right,” said Daniels as they crouched in front of the large windows. “You know the layout. You five with me up the stairs to the living quarters on the top floor. You four secure the ground floor and warehouse. You two, round the back. He’s not expecting us, so this should be simple, but he might try something, so stay alert. Smith, get the door. Go! Go! Go!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Tom threw himself out of bed as the alarm went off. He had rigged the system up himself; the computer screen perched on the tea chest at the foot of his bed lit up with a floor plan of the building, the flashing red section showing where the alarm had been triggered — someone was in the shop downstairs. A sickening crash as something fragile was knocked to the ground echoed up the stairwell confirmed it.

Tom grabbed a shirt and a pair of jeans off the floor and pulled them on, wriggling his feet awkwardly into a pair of sneakers that still had the laces done up. He could hear them coming up the stairs now, their molded rubber soles squeaking on the concrete, doors slamming, shouts of “clear” and “on me” rolling ever closer as they made their way through the maze of offices toward him.

Finally the door crashed open and six black shapes tumbled into the room.

“Armed police! Don’t move!”

Tom put his hands up. No point in arguing, not with these odds.

“Tom Kirk?” asked Daniels. Tom nodded sullenly.

“Of course it’s Tom fucking Kirk,” gasped Clarke. He had appeared in the doorway breathing heavily, his face flushed with the effort of running up the stairs, his tie askew. The armed men stepped back to allow him into the room, still covering Tom with their guns.

“Tom Kirk,” said Clarke between breaths. “I’m arresting you for the murder of Henry Julius Renwick.” Tom’s eyes widened with bewilderment. “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you fail to mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court.”

Clarke walked right up to him and stood with his nose only a few inches away from Tom’s.

“Anything you do say can be given in evidence against you.” His lips stretched over his teeth in a thin smile. “I’d told you you’d slip up eventually, you smug bastard.”

Tom was stunned, uncomprehending. Uncle Harry? Dead? He had murdered Harry? It was ridiculous. It was insane. It was too awful to even begin to take in. He didn’t believe it. Refused to believe it.

“Clarke, even you know that this is bullshit. I may be many things, but I’m no killer. Harry Renwick and I are almost family.”

“People like you don’t have family.”

“I saw Harry last night, had dinner with him and a friend of his. When I left he was alive. Just ask her.”

“Is that right?” sneered Clarke, walking behind Tom. “Funny that the table was only set for two then.”

“For two? There must be some mistake.”

“No mistake, Kirk, at least not by us. Because guess whose prints we found all over the place? That’s right. Yours. Yours and Renwick’s. No one else’s.”

Tom could feel Clarke’s wet breath against the back of his neck as he reached into his pocket and took out his handcuffs.

“I’ve waited a long time for this. And believe me, it’s been worth it to see the expression on your face,” Clark hissed.

Tom knew that he should just go quietly. He was outnumbered and outgunned. But the table only set for two? Only his prints at the house? This was an old-fashioned setup and somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to get it right. And Clarke had clearly fallen for the bait. Every instinct that Tom had developed and trained and refined over the years was screaming at him to get out of there and get out of there fast. But if he was going to make his move, it would have to be now.

Clarke grabbed one of Tom’s wrists and began to twist it upward behind his back. Rather than fight him, Tom relaxed his arm so it gave away easily under Clarke’s rough grip. Clarke, who had braced himself forward in expectation of Tom resisting him, overbalanced slightly. Tom immediately snapped his wrist out of Clarke’s grasp and in an instant had spun round behind him, grabbing his arm and pinning it to his back.

The armed men, momentarily caught out by the sudden blur of Tom’s movement, took a step forward and raised their guns as they realized what had happened. Tom sheltered behind Clarke and twisted his arm viciously, causing him to shout out in pain.

“Don’t move. He’s breaking my sodding arm.”

“I’ve got a shot, sir,” one of the men called out to Daniels, aiming just past Clarke’s head.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Clarke screamed at him. “You’ll shoot me, you stupid bastard.”

Daniels lowered his gun and motioned with his hand for the others to do the same, fixing Tom with his eyes.

“Don’t be an idiot, Kirk. We’ve got the place surrounded. Give it up. No one needs to get hurt here.”

“No one will get hurt if you stay back,” Tom responded.

He backed across the room and into the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind him and bolting it. He pushed Clarke to his knees and bent him forward over the toilet, handcuffing his hands together, so that his arms were stretched forward and joined at the wrists under the soil pipe. He couldn’t move. Clarke was white with fear and rage.

“You bastard, Kirk,” he said, his voice muffled and hollow as it echoed out of the toilet bowl. “You’re dead. I’ll fucking kill you myself. You hear me?”

Tom opened the bathroom window and checked outside. It gave onto a narrow, empty alleyway, a thin ribbon of pigeon-soiled tarmac some fifty feet below. There was hammering on the door.

“Open up, Kirk. You’ve got till the count of ten and then we’re coming in for you.” Daniels started to count. “One… two… ”

Tom jumped up onto the windowsill.

“Three… four… five… ”

He reached out and flushed the toilet before clambering out and sliding down the drainpipe.

A few seconds later and the bathroom door splintered open as three men, led by Daniels, flew in, their guns poised. Seeing that the room was empty, Daniels rushed to the window and looked out, taking in the drainpipe and the now empty alleyway.

“He’s gone out the window. Get everyone outside. We’ll need to lock down the whole area.”

The men trooped obediently out of the room, but as Daniels turned to leave, he heard a coughing and spluttering noise from behind the battered door. Pushing it aside, he saw the back of Clarke’s head, his hair and shoulders soaking wet, his body shaking violently.

“Daniels. Is that you? Get me the fuck out of here!” roared Clarke, the water still swirling only inches from his nose. Daniels bent down toward him and whispered in his ear.

“Nice collar, Clarke.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Tom had planned out this escape route when he had first moved in. Old habits die hard. The alleyway led him to a maze of backstreets and passages that eventually brought him out down by the river nearly a mile from his building.

The Embankment was still quiet when he reached it, the odd car and taxi heading toward the City and Canary Wharf, traders rushing to catch the end of the Asian markets or steal a march on the European ones. A few joggers panted past him, nodding to the music playing through the MP3 players strapped to their waists.

As he slowed to a walk, he tried to make some sense of what had just happened. Uncle Harry dead. Himself framed for it. Why?

“Kirk,” a woman’s voice called out. “Kirk, over here.” He looked up and saw Jennifer waving him over from the open door of a black cab. Tom stopped and stared at her accusingly. First Piccadilly, then Harry’s, now here. She was persistent, if nothing else.

“Get in,” she said more urgently now. “They’re sealing off the whole area. You’ve got to get out of London. Let me help you.”

Tom stood there, certain that whatever she wanted, helping him was not her prime concern.

“Listen,” she continued, stepping out of the cab now and shouting over the occasional traffic. “You’ve been set up. I know you didn’t kill Harry. I can prove it. Just get in and I’ll show you.”

Whatever suspicions Tom had of Jennifer’s motives, he knew that it was risky for him to stay out in the open. The sound of an approaching siren made his mind up for him. He jogged over to the cab and climbed in. Jennifer stepped in after him and slammed the door shut.

“Are you okay?” she asked breathlessly, folding down the seat opposite him. Tom looked past her to the taxi driver sitting behind his plastic screen.

“I think you met Max yesterday. Don’t worry, he’s one of our people here. The taxi just helps us blend in a little.”

Max winked at Tom in his rearview mirror and Tom recognized him as one of Jennifer’s minders from the day before. The square-jawed driver with his blond crew cut and thick muscular neck could hardly have looked less like a London cabbie if he had tried.

But then the cab was obviously not standard issue, either. The windows were clearly bulletproof; the bodywork — judging from the meaty clunk made by the closing door — armor-plated and in all likelihood cork-lined as well for sound insulation. Most noticeable of all, the usual diesel whine had been replaced by the throaty roar of a transplanted V8 to cope with the extra weight.

“No, I’m not okay,” said Tom, taking in Jennifer’s packed bag on the floor next to her, clothes poking out from the zipper fastening. “Why are you here? What’s going on?”

For the first time since he had met her, Jennifer looked uncomfortable, sad, even.

“I’m sorry about Harry. We should never have got him involved.”

“You can apologize later. Just tell me what happened.”

She paused before answering.

“About forty-five minutes after you left, three men broke into the house and attacked us. They shot him, shot him right in front of me.”

“Shot him?… And you? How come you got away?” His voice was loaded with suspicion.

“I don’t know. I tried to help him. Tried to fight them off. But there were too many of them. They were armed. They knocked me out and when I came round there was no sign of Harry, just blood all over the hall floor. But I smelled burning and followed the blood trail to the basement. They’d set fire to him. They shot him, dragged him to the basement and set fire to him.”

“Shit.” Tom bit his lower lip, his brain feverishly conjuring up an image of Renwick’s charred and twisted corpse before immediately straining to banish the ghoulish scene from his mind. Harry was gone. Harry, who had always been there, who had been more of a father to him than his own father. His grief struck him like a sudden wave, leaving him disorientated and gasping for breath, uncertain whether to swim up or down to get back to the surface. Even so, he wouldn’t allow himself to cry, not in front of her. Not in front of anyone.

“Then I called Max here to come and fetch me. He called the cops after we’d left.”

The taxi crossed the river and made its way past the poured concrete mass of the South Bank and the delicate steel web of the Millennium Wheel, its now stationary pods shining like pearls in the morning sun.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“We’ve had people here following you for several days. They were watching you last night to make sure you didn’t disappear or make a move for the coin. Luckily, one of them saw you jumping out that window.”

“Where’s the coin now?” he asked, his throat swollen.

“Gone.” Jennifer’s voice was hollow and she turned her head to stare out the window as she answered. “It was the only thing they took. It’s what they came for.”

“You mean it was some sort of professional hit?”

“Looks that way.”

“But how did they even know it was there?”

“Two possible explanations. One, that I was followed there by someone who knew I had the coin on me. Two, that someone else tipped them off. We know you didn’t make any calls on your cell or from home last night so that puts you in the clear.”

“So you think that Harry—”

“We’re analyzing his phone records.” There was a pause until Jennifer spoke again, regret in her voice. “Look, Kirk, I don’t know how to tell you this, but we ran some checks on Harry Renwick last night. There was no rich relative, no inheritance.”

“What are you saying?” Tom was instantly on the defensive.

“Think about it. Those paintings, that huge place. He must have paid for it all somehow. Maybe he just got greedy?”

Tom bit his lip. He refused to believe it. Harry on the take? It just didn’t make sense.

“And whoever murdered Harry and stole the coin made it look like you did it. When I went back to the kitchen I saw that they’d removed my place setting and just left yours and his. I guess they just had to look for the lipstick.”

“Why?”

“That’s what I want to know.” Jennifer’s eyes glinted with determination. “I guess you make a pretty convincing suspect.”

Tom nodded, reliving that morning’s events in his head.

“You should have seen Clarke’s face when he came to arrest me.”

“Clarke?”

“A cop. Been trying to nail me for years. He must have thought he’d finally hit the jackpot.”

There were a few moments’ silence as Tom’s mind raced over everything he had just heard.

“So let me get this straight,” he said eventually. “You’ve got people who can prove that Harry was alive when I left him, that I didn’t move from my place all night long and that I didn’t call anyone.”

“Uh-huh.” Jennifer nodded.

“So what do you want? What’s the catch?”

“Did you steal those coins, Kirk?” Her eyes searched his out as she asked the question. Tom returned her gaze unblinkingly and answered in a firm, confident voice.

“No. Before last night I’d never even heard of them. I wish I still hadn’t.”

She nodded and Tom sensed that she was wrestling with a decision that she didn’t really want to make. The cab had reached Vauxhall, and the glass-and-stone castellated mass of the M15 building dragged past them.

“The catch is that if I help you, you have to help me.”

“What do you mean?” asked Tom warily.

Jennifer sat back in her seat and again gazed out the window as she spoke.

“That coin was one of five stolen from Fort Knox three weeks ago.”

“Fort Knox!” Tom interrupted. “Christ! How did they do that?”

“That’s not important right now. What is important is that one of them turned up in Paris two weeks later. The same coin I showed you last night and which I’ve now lost. So we think the other coins are in Europe, too, possibly being sold to a private collector. The question is, if you didn’t steal them, who do you think did?”

Tom looked away from her angrily.

“I’m no snitch.”

“What about Harry?”

“What about Harry? What’s he got to do with it?”

“You think the Fort Knox job and his murder are unrelated? My money says that whoever stole the coins, somehow lost one, found out that Harry had it, and killed him to get it back. Help me find who was behind this job and you’ll be helping catch Harry’s killers.”

Tom was silent as he considered what she had just said.

“I’ve got to go to Paris,” she continued. “I’ve got a meeting set up with Van Simson this afternoon. Afterward, I want to have a look around. It’s where the coin was found. You know the city, understand the way things work over there. I’m talking about a couple of days of your time at most.”

“You’re kidding, right.” He almost laughed his question.

“Why not?”

“Are you crazy? For a million different reasons. You think I trust you guys? I got screwed over once. I’m not falling for the same trick again.”

“I don’t know what happened to you before, I don’t want to know. But this is the real deal, I promise.”

“We both know your promises aren’t worth shit.”

Jennifer nodded slowly.

“You’re right. It’s not my call. But come to Paris and I’ll speak to my boss. If he refuses the deal then I’ll let you go, say you gave me the slip or something. That I can promise,” Jennifer continued, leaning back in her seat and looking out of the window. They were heading out toward Clapham now, the office buildings and plush riverside developments having given way to rows of neat Victorian terraced houses. She knocked on the screen and the taxi slowed to a halt.

“Otherwise, it’s up to you to take your chances here and now.” She opened the taxi door and waved toward it. “But I can tell you that the U.S. government will not be in a position to back up your story. There will only be your word that I was at that dinner, that Harry was alive when you left and that you didn’t leave your place all night. Frankly, I don’t envy your chances.”

Tom started laughing in spite of himself.

“Just so I know, is this you helping me still?”

“I’m not trying to make any friends here. I’m talking about a truce. You help me find the coins and whoever took them. I help you to find Harry’s killers, square things up with your friend Clarke, and wipe your file clean. It’s up to you, but it’s a good deal.”

Much as Tom hated to admit it, she was right.

“Fine, I’ll come to Paris and you talk to your boss. If he doesn’t like it I’ll disappear before you can say ‘extradition treaty.’ But I’m doing this for Harry, not for you and certainly not for the FBI.” He raised his voice slightly to emphasize his point. “And when we find them, whoever they are, don’t stand in my way. I want the people who did this to him. I want them to pay.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

It took them two hours to drive down to the airstrip. The black taxi made its way incongruously, once they had left the motorway, down narrow roads and steep country lanes, its domed roof just visible over the top of the thick hedgerows, until they reached the plane that was waiting for them at one end of a large sloping field deep in the Kent countryside.

Obtaining it had required a quick change of plan by the ever-helpful Max since, with the police looking for Tom, the chartered flight that Jennifer had been booked on was now out of the question. Good old Uncle Sam clearly did have very long arms, thought Jennifer proudly.

“Climb on board,” she said to Tom as they approached the plane. “I’m going to make that call.”

Nodding, Tom hauled himself through the hatch as Jennifer reached for her phone. It was just after three A.M. in D.C., but she figured Corbett would want to be woken for this. Her stomach tightened the second he picked up. “It’s me, sir.”

“Browne? What time is it?”

“About eight A.M. London time, sir. I’m sorry to have woken you.”

“No, that’s fine.” She heard a yawn from the other end. “How did it go last night? Everything okay?”

“No sir, everything’s not okay.”

“What happened?” The tiredness evaporated almost immediately from his voice.

“Renwick’s dead.”

“Dead?” She could picture Corbett jumping to his feet as he said this, his eyes flashing.

“Murdered. Shot. I saw it.”

“Slow down. What happened.”

She took a breath, tried to steady herself. When she spoke it was in calm, deliberate sentences.

“Kirk was there as planned. We had dinner and then he left. I stayed to talk the case over with Renwick. Then three men broke in. They attacked us, shot Renwick and knocked me out. When I came round the coin was gone.”

“It was what?” Now she saw him sinking onto the bed, his fist clenching and then relaxing against his side. There was a pause. “Shit. Young will have a heart attack when he hears this.”

“I’ll get it back, sir.”

“Do you think they were there for the coin or was it coincidence?”

“No coincidence. Renwick had millions of dollars of paintings hanging on his walls. They didn’t touch them. They were in and out. And they didn’t just shoot Renwick, they practically executed him. Because he knew who’d sent them.”

“But how did they know the coin was there?”

“Max is checking Renwick’s phone records for me. It looks like he made a few calls after Kirk left.”

“So we got a dead civilian and a missing eight-million-dollar coin?”

“The Brits think Kirk killed Renwick and tried to arrest him for it this morning. I had him under surveillance all night and there was no way he was involved. He was set up. His prints were deliberately left at the scene while mine were wiped.”

“What are you saying?”

“Sir, I think we may be chasing the wrong guy. I can read people and my gut tells me he knew nothing about Fort Knox and nothing about the coins until I told him.”

“So what are you suggesting? We just let him walk away?”

“He refused to strike a deal yesterday but now we’re his only alibi and he’s got no choice. He’s agreed to help if we put the cops here straight. I want to take him to Paris with me to see Van Simson. He knows the game better than anyone and he knows the territory over there, too. It makes sense to use him while we can.”

“I’m going to have to talk to Green and Young about this. It’s too big a call for me.”

“Fine, just let me take him with me now. If it comes back a no, we can decide what to do with him then. But the more time we lose, the colder the trail.”

“You’re way out on a limb here, Browne, you know that, don’t you? There’s no way you can be a hundred percent sure that Kirk’s not involved. It’s a big risk.”

“You’d take it… sir.”

Corbett gave a short laugh.

“You know what? I probably would.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The small Cessna Skylane bounced its way across the English Channel’s shifting wind currents like a stone skipping across a pond. Her eyes shut to steady her stomach, Jennifer barely said a word from the moment she stepped on board. But it didn’t seem to matter because Tom had not been particularly talkative, staring silently out the window instead.

Several hours later, the plane touched down at Deauville airport, where a dark green Renault Mégane was waiting for them, together with a few changes of clothing for Tom and a new American passport in the name of William Travis, that he accepted with a grudging nod of respect at Max’s obvious efficiency.

“So what was your boss’s verdict, Agent Browne?” asked Tom, as they turned onto the A13 and headed for Paris.

“You know, if we’re going to be working together, perhaps we should try first names.”

Tom shrugged.

“Sure, Jen.”

“Jennifer, if you don’t mind,” she said curtly. First names was one thing. “Jen” suggested a degree of familiarity they weren’t close to having. Tom made a dismissive noise and turned away. Jennifer shook her head ruefully. This was clearly going to be a long journey. “He said that he’d think about it.”

“Well, that fills me with confidence.”

They were both quiet and the wheels thumped rhythmically over the joints in the tarmac like a needle reaching the end of a record. The flat countryside slid by, huge rectangular sheets of gold and bronze that the combine harvesters had yet to dent. After a while, Jennifer looked over at him.

“So you used to be in the CIA?”

She accelerated into the outside lane as she spoke, and noticed Tom clutching the grab handle over the door. She had insisted on driving, knowing that the familiar feel of the pedals under her feet and the wheel in her hands would help her unwind after the flight. Tom stared out the window as he answered.

“Yeah.”

“Operation Centaur?”

“Yeah.”

“So, what happened?”

“It’s a two-hour drive to Paris,” Tom snapped. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather talk about something else.”

“Fine.” Jennifer dropped a gear and sped past a huge truck, its plastic sides whipping the air, before changing up again, the car lurching forward as she stamped the accelerator down to the floor. She sensed Tom flinching next to her and smiled. She could see he was not used to being a passenger, but then neither was she.

Another ten minutes went by, until it was Tom’s turn to break the silence, his question betraying the thought that had clearly been circling through his head.

“How do you know about Centaur?”

“Oh, so you want to talk about it now?” Tom glared at her. “You dropped a hair in New York when you stole that egg.” She explained. “We got a DNA match and the system triggered an alert to the NSA. They briefed us about it. That’s how we made the connection between you and the Fort Knox job.”

“What else did they say?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Did they tell you about me? About what happened?”

“They said you went off the reservation.”

“Christ!” Tom started laughing. “John fucking Piper.”

“How did…?” Jennifer asked in surprise.

“Because only he would have said that.” He laughed again. “So John Piper’s managed to crawl his way out of the Agency into the NSA now, has he? I bet he’s terrified this whole Centaur thing will come out and bite him in the ass.”

“Like us, he just wants the coins back.”

“Let me tell you something about John Piper. All he’s ever wanted is what’s good for John Piper. What did he say about me?”

“That you were a good agent who went bad. Their best agent. He said you killed someone.”

“Did he now?” Tom’s voice was hard, his eyes narrowed.

“Did you?” Jennifer asked, briefly flicking her eyes away from the road.

“Yes.” He nodded slowly. “But he would have killed me if I hadn’t.”

“That’s original,” she sniffed dismissively.

“They’d decided to shut Centaur down.”

“Who’s they?”

“Piper and his CIA buddies. They asked me to do one last job — break into a Swiss biotech company, steal some files, torch the place, and then put a bullet in the chief scientist’s head so that he couldn’t re-create the research. I didn’t do wet work — they had other people for that — so I refused. They threatened to bring me up on charges. You know, refusing to obey a superior officer, that sort of crap. When I told them I was leaving they sent my handler to retire me. That’s what they call it, by the way. I just did what I had to do to stay alive.”

“Why the hell would they do that?” She shrugged disbelievingly, although she had to admit the little she’d seen of John Piper lent some credibility to Tom’s story, however much she mistrusted him.

“Because by then they’d realized that if Centaur ever got out they’d all be in the firing line. I figure they asked us all to make a hit to see how far they could control us. Maybe even planned to use it as blackmail to make sure we all stayed quiet. I don’t know what happened to the others, but when Piper realized I wasn’t going to play ball he made his move. It’s how they work.”

“It’s how you want me to think they work,” she snorted.

“They don’t play by the normal rules. You get caught on the wrong side of them and they come down on you hard.”

“So what happened in Paris?”

Tom smiled.

“I cut a deal with the French.”

“What sort of deal?”

“I got something back for them that they’d lost and they helped me disappear.”

Jennifer glanced at Tom.

“And then you became a thief?”

“What did you expect me to do? You think that I was ever going to be able to hold down a regular nine-to-five sort of job? Work in an office? Push paper around?” A faint shadow of Tom’s face reflected in the glass as he smiled at the thought. “I didn’t choose this life. The Agency left me swinging in the wind. I lost everything I had. In the end I had no choice.”

“But you enjoyed it, didn’t you?” she asked in an accusing tone.

“Why, was that wrong of me? Stealing was what I was good at, what I was trained to do. Yeah, I enjoyed it. Still do, I guess. The planning, the job, the escape. After a while, the adrenaline’s addictive. I stopped needing the money years ago.”

“So what made you decide to stop?” she asked skeptically, knowing that her tone would reveal that she still thought it highly unlikely he actually had.

He shook his head.

The reflections of white chevrons, painted onto the road to indicate how close cars could safely drive behind each other, strobed rhythmically across the front of Tom’s sunglasses.

“No one thing. My father’s funeral, maybe. I guess sometimes things come together in your head and you just know it’s time.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

They drove on in silence, tower blocks and squat warehouses joining the land to the sky in a gray mist of steel and concrete as they reached the grimy underbelly of Paris, the glittering new soccer stadium in St. Denis an unexpected break in the dark suburban fog.

“What do you know about Darius van Simson?”

“Only what Harry told us last night,” Tom replied. “About him having bought the Double Eagle that came up at auction. The name’s familiar, though. I think I read about him somewhere.”

“You probably did,” said Jennifer. “He turns up in the Fortune 500 every year. They think he’ll break the top fifty this time.”

“Why do you want to go and see him?”

“Until a few weeks ago as far as anyone knew there were only three Double Eagles in existence — Van Simson’s and the two in the Smithsonian. Now, with the theft of the five secret Fort Knox coins, it seems there are eight. Van Simson shouldn’t know that yet. I want to see how he reacts when I tell him that his coin might not be quite so unique as he thought it was when he bought it.”

“You think he might be involved?”

“He’s certainly rich enough to have put the job together. And he’s a big player in the coin market as well as one of Harry’s biggest clients. I think it’s possible he may know something about what’s going on, yes.

“Where did he make his money?”

“Real estate. You know, office buildings, shopping malls, residential developments, that sort of thing. He seems to have a gift for buying cheap and then miraculously getting a road moved, or planning permission to add an extra three floors.”

“So he’s smart?”

“Smart and if you believe the stories, brutal.” Jennifer checked her mirror as she carved smoothly across two lanes to get out from behind another truck. Tom gripped the grab handle over his head.

“What stories?”

“They say he got his first break when he bought a retirement home and then forced all the residents to leave so he could knock it down and build something else. When they refused, he set fire to it. All told, thirteen people died. Of course, there was nothing to link him to it, but he got his apartment block.”

“You see, that’s the problem with you people. Always so willing to think the worst of everyone. Have you any idea how easy it is for these rumors to start?”

“Sure,” she cut in. “And sometimes those rumors start for a reason. Most of the time, there’s no smoke without fire.”

Tom shook his head.

“What do you know about it? I’ll bet you’ve never even had a parking ticket.”

Just for a moment Jennifer contemplated revealing how wrong he was. But the thought vanished almost as quickly as it had occurred to her. Much better to keep things strictly professional between them.

“Tell me about this Fort Knox job, then,” Tom asked eventually. “What do you think happened?”

Taking a deep breath, Jennifer briefed Tom on her investigation so far. The murder of the Italian priest Ranieri, the discovery of the coin, the FBI’s theory about the break-in and Short’s involvement and subsequent murder. Tom listened intently, especially to the technical details of how the job had actually been pulled.

“They were pros, that’s for sure.” Tom nodded slowly when she had finished. “Looks like they had every angle covered.”

“You do think it’s possible, then? Breaking into Fort Knox in the way I’ve described?”

“If they had a guy on the inside, then it’s possible, sure.” Tom shrugged. “All it takes is one person to disable a security system or not check something that they should and you leave yourself wide open.”

“And the computer virus? You ever see that before?”

“More and more. The world’s moving from keys to computers. A virus like that is just a very sophisticated lock pick. That was the easy part. It was getting the container inside that took some real planning.”

“Yeah.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I guess so.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Tom said with a smile. “What’s the matter? You don’t believe your own theory?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just… well, it’s probably nothing, really, but something’s been bothering me the last couple of days. Something I didn’t really think about at the time.”

“What?” Curiosity in Tom’s voice now.

“You don’t think that discovering the murder and finding the container so quickly was all a bit… convenient? All a bit easy.”

Tom shrugged.

“Just because everything points to the same thing doesn’t necessarily make it convenient. It could just make it consistent.”

“Maybe.” She paused before continuing. “But then what I can’t figure out is why go to all the trouble of faking a suicide when you’ve already smashed the guy’s skull to pieces? I mean, an autopsy is standard for all suicides. Someone was bound to pick it up sooner or later.”

“Unless they figured that no one would realize the coins were gone until years later and so never link the two?”

“Sure, but it’s not just the suicide. If you really wanted to destroy a vital piece of evidence, would you throw it onto a fire at the back of the house of the person you’d just murdered?”

“Maybe they got disturbed. Maybe it was a mistake.”

“No, these people don’t make mistakes. The job was perfectly planned from beginning to end. You said so yourself.”

“Well, then.” Tom clasped his hands together. “The only other explanation is that the reason they left the container there is the same reason they made it obvious that it was a faked suicide.”

“Which was?” Jennifer asked, already knowing in her own heart what Tom’s answer would be and wishing that she had another.

“So someone like you would find it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

As they hit central Paris, they were soon immersed in the mid-afternoon traffic. Scooters and rollerbladers weaved randomly in and out of the cars and buses, which in turn fought their way through the steady waves of tourists washing over the road, seemingly oblivious to the traffic lights. Tom navigated them down to the quais where a stiff breeze chased them along the river bank.

Jennifer was struggling to concentrate on the road as the city scrolled past, her eyes shining at her first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, its skeletal frame soaring over distant rooftops. Tom took on the role of the dutiful tour guide by pointing out the sights as they streamed past — the Place de la Concorde, the Louvre, the Hôtel de Ville, Nôtre Dame — until they reached the Marais and Tom directed her to the symmetrical elegance of the Place des Vosges.

“What a beautiful square,” she breathed.

“It should be. It’s the oldest in Paris. It used to be called La Place Royale because Henry the Fourth built it so that he could live on one side and his wife on the other. But he never moved in. Some say it was a property scam, that he never had any intention of living here and just used his name to sell it at a huge profit.”

Jennifer gave a short laugh.

“I guess every age has its Van Simsons.”

Tom pointed at a space that had just opened up on the left-hand side of the square outside a café.

“Let’s park here. It’s only a few minutes’ walk.”

“Fine.”

“And I guess I’d better get changed.”

Jennifer parked and Tom quickly slipped on the shirt, suit, and shoes that had been left for him in the car. He was not surprised that they had got his sizes exactly right. He left the tie off.

“Don’t forget, you’re here as an observer,” Jennifer warned over her shoulder as she waited for him to finish dressing. “So just observe. I’ll do the talking.”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Tom shot back.

They walked down the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, the cars parked bumper to bumper, occasionally even mounting the curb to squeeze themselves in, before turning left down the Rue du Temple. Jennifer walked with long fluid strides, the material of her skirt stretching around her knees with every step and then loosening again.

The doors to Van Simson’s house soon loomed above them, a cliff of polished oak and brass. Unsurprisingly, they were bolted firmly shut and it took several minutes of leaning on the bell before the approaching sound of crunching gravel indicated that someone was in.

“Agent Browne?” A large man had opened the gate that was set into the left-hand door, his skin bleached, his hair white and thin. His eyes, unprotected by any natural pigmentation, glowed red and sore as he glanced at Tom questioningly. One of his hands was bent awkwardly behind his back as if tucked into his waistband, and Tom knew instantly that his fingers were almost certainly wrapped around a gun.

“Yes” — Jennifer stepped forward — “and an… associate of mine, Mr. Kirk. We’re here to see Mr. Van Simson. I believe we’re expected.”

“You, yes. Him, no,” The man looked accusingly in Tom’s direction. “Him, no.” Suddenly, he put his index finger against his right ear and nodded quickly. A clear plastic wire snaked from his ear, round the back of his head and into his collar.

“Mr. Van Simson will see you both,” he grunted, his Dutch accent clear. Taking a quick look up and down the street behind them, he opened the gate wide enough for them both to slip through into the courtyard before crashing it shut behind them.

“Please raise your arms,” said the man. He frisked Tom and then ran his hands over Jennifer, to her obvious discomfort. Seemingly satisfied, he nodded in the direction of the house.

They walked silently across the gravel, Tom noticing that two other men were watching them from an upstairs room, the barrel of what looked like a high-powered rifle poking its nose out of the window. Van Simson’s yellow Bentley was parked casually across the middle of the courtyard, the heavy skid marks in the gravel indicating that it had been thrown there at some speed.

“The two side wings are offices for Van Simson’s property business,” Jennifer whispered. “He lives on his own in the main building and has his office on the top floor.” Tom nodded. “Apparently, it’s an entirely separate construction within the original building built to Israeli military specifications to withstand a direct missile strike.”

Tom raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He had met people like Van Simson before and had long since ceased to be either surprised or impressed by the countless bizarre ways such people seemed to find to spend their money.

The front door buzzed open automatically as they approached and they stepped into the building’s cold, echoing emptiness. The vaulted ceiling soared perhaps thirty feet above their heads, while the walls and the wide square staircase that swept regally up into the darkness of the upper floors were sheathed in a somber collection of paintings and portraits. One in particular caught Tom’s eye. In it, a mother pleaded for her son to be spared, as around her Roman soldiers indiscriminately slaughtered women and children. The street ran with blood.

“Please go straight upstairs.” Another man, also clad in a black suit, had appeared out of the shadows on the left and indicated what looked like a door ahead of them. They walked toward it until it suddenly split open down the middle, revealing an elevator. There were no buttons, just a keyhole on the left, but it started up without their pressing anything.

They looked at each other in silence, a small red light on the overhead camera flashing intermittently, almost invisible under the laboratory glare of the overhead lights. With a gentle shrug, the elevator stopped and the door opened onto a large rectangular room, windows along one wall. Van Simson was behind his desk, open-necked white shirt over blue jeans, bare feet encased in soft brown suede. He stood up as soon as they came in.

“Hello, I’m Darius Van Simson.” Jennifer took his hand and shook it firmly.

“Mr. Van Simson, it is very kind of you to see us at such short notice.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said Van Simson, smiling generously. “And you must be Tom Kirk?” He thrust his hand out again. “Charles’s son.”

“Yes,” said Tom, surprised.

“I thought I recognized your face. I was a great admirer of your father’s — a regular customer, in fact.” He indicated the four Chagalls that hung between the windows with his other hand. “He chose all these for me.”

“Really?” Tom flashed Jennifer a knowing glance. If his father, that bastion of puritanical thought and deed, had dealt with Van Simson, then he couldn’t be as bad as Jennifer had suggested in the car. “It’s a great set.”

“I’ve been very happy with them.” He smiled at Tom. “You have my condolences.” He sounded sincere and Tom was grateful.

“Thank you.”

“Let’s all sit down.” He led them past the large white architectural model in the center of the room to the two sofas on the other side and turned to Jennifer.

“Can I get you a drink? No? You, Mr. Kirk?”

“A vodka tonic please.” Tom relaxed back into the sofa.

“I think I’ll have the same,” said Van Simson as he busied himself over a small drinks cabinet. “And you must call me Darius.” He handed Tom a glass and sat down in the sofa opposite them. “Cheers.”

As he raised his glass, Van Simson’s left sleeve rode up slightly and Tom caught a glimpse of his watch’s black face and pink-gold case. He recognized it immediately. A limited edition Lange & Söhne Tourbillon de la Mérite, a masterpiece of German craftsmanship and at over $150,000 a shot, as expensive as it was rare.

“Beautiful watch,” said Tom, tilting his glass respectfully toward it.

“Thank you,” said Van Simson warmly. “Most people don’t notice but it’s always nice when someone does.”

He looked at it lovingly, centering it on his wrist before lifting his eyes back toward Jennifer.

“Ambassador Cross mentioned that you wanted to ask me some questions when he called up earlier today and demanded I see you.” A smile crossed his lips, as if the thought of someone demanding something of him was an amusing novelty. “So, now you’re here, how can I help?”

“It’s a… delicate matter,” Jennifer began under Tom’s watchful eye. He was curious to see how she handled this. “Approximately two weeks ago the French police recovered a coin here, in Paris.”

“Go on.”

“It was a 1933 Double Eagle.”

Van Simson gave a short laugh.

“Well, it must be a fake then. As far as I know there are only three 1933 Double Eagles. It’s certainly not mine and I doubt very much Miles Baxter has let one out from under his claws.”

“No, Mr. Baxter is as vigilant as ever.” Jennifer smiled. “But we don’t think it’s a fake. In fact, the forensic analysis showed an almost perfect match with the two Smithsonian coins.”

“Can I see it?” asked Van Simson, placing his glass down on the table in between them. It was a thick circle of glass resting on what looked like the shredded rubber remains of a racing wheel, evidence of Van Simson’s sponsorship of a Formula One racing team, Tom guessed.

“I’m afraid not. I don’t have it on me.” Tom smiled. She didn’t have to lie about that, at least.

“So where do you think this coin is from?” Van Simson folded his arms across his chest.

“At this stage, we’re not sure.”

“Then I’m sorry, but I fail to see how I can help,” said Van Simson, rubbing his hand across his goatee. “If you can’t show me the coin, how can I give you an opinion on it? That is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Partly, yes. But it did also occur to us that the coin we have might be yours. That would at least explain where it was from and the match to the Smithsonian coins.” Van Simson laughed.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the security system I have here is watertight. There’s no way that you have my coin.” Tom sensed that Van Simson flashed him a quick look as he said this. Perhaps he knew more about him than he was letting on.

“When was the last time you saw the coin?” Jennifer persisted.

“Four, maybe six months ago.”

“That long?”

Van Simson smiled.

“Some people love to endlessly gaze and touch and toy with whatever it is they collect. For me, I do not feel compelled to revisit my collection again and again. It’s enough to know that I own it. That I own it and no one else does.”

“Can I make a suggestion, then?” Jennifer asked.

“Of course.”

“If we can confirm your coin is safe, as you said, won’t that prove that the one we have is a fake?”

Van Simson got up and walked over to the window, his left arm folded behind his back, clearly considering Jennifer’s proposal. Outside, a distant church clock chimed the hours. There was silence as each strike resonated, then settled.

“I could wait for you outside,” Tom suggested to Jennifer, mindful of Van Simson’s earlier glance. If he did know who Tom was, then he would be the last person he would let down there.

“No need,” said Van Simson, turning round to face them, a broad smile on his face. “Let’s just go down and check on my coin and then we’ll both know what’s what. And I insist you come too, Mr. Kirk. I think we’ll all find it very interesting.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Van Simson inserted a small key into the keyhole on the left-hand side of the elevator and a rectangular section of the stainless-steel wall retracted smoothly, revealing a keypad and a glass panel. He punched a short code into the keypad; the glass panel lit up and he placed his hand against it. For a few seconds a bright blue light leaked out from under his hand as a scanner rolled over his palm and read his handprint. A few moments later the doors closed and the elevator started down.

“You know, not many people have seen what I am about to show you,” Van Simson said, turning round to face them, a hint of excitement in his voice.

The elevator came to a smooth stop and the doors slid open to reveal a wide corridor, lit with recessed lights. The walls and floor were made of smoothed concrete sections and the clean smell of steel and fresh mortar was in the air.

“The vault’s new. I had it built especially to house my collection,” said Van Simson proudly. “We’re about twenty-five feet underground now. But don’t worry. The walls are made from reinforced concrete and have been lined with two-inch steel plate. We’re quite safe.”

Instinctively, Tom was assessing the setup. He couldn’t help himself. The corridor was about twenty feet long with the elevator at one end and the vault door at the other. There was no other way in or out that he could see. Halfway down, a huge steel gate had been embedded into the wall and beyond that he could make out small holes in the stonework, housings for laser trip beams. Video cameras tracked every single inch of the corridor.

As they approached the steel gate, Van Simson withdrew a card from his pocket and swiped it along a reader set into the wall. This opened a panel in the wall behind which was a speaker and a small screen. Van Simson leaned forward.

“This is Darius Van Simson. Initiate challenge procedure.”

A processed voice came back.

“Please confirm today’s password.”

“Ozymandias,” said Van Simson firmly and the small screen flickered with a series of long oscillating lines as it captured and analyzed his voice.

There was a brief silence and then the robotic voice spoke again.

“Password and voice match. Please step away from the gate.”

A light next to the speaker flashed green and with a loud clang as a restraining bolt slid home, the gate was raised up into the roof.

“It’s a very impressive setup, Darius,” said Tom. Van Simson glanced back at Tom and Jennifer, his voice animated.

“Thank you. I designed it myself.”

They walked through the gate and up to the vault door where Van Simson swiped his card along another wall-mounted reader. A similarly disguised panel slid back, this time revealing a small screen and numerical touch pad. The screen flashed:

Please enter pass code.

Van Simson leaned forward and deftly tapped out a long sequence of numbers. The screen went blank and then flashed back:

Entrance sequence authenticated. Please stand by.

A light over the door turned red and to a low mechanical whine, the vault bolts were smoothly retracted, a satisfying metallic clunk echoing through the corridor as each one came to rest within its housing. The red light began to flash and the massive door swung back on its thick hinges. With the door fully open, the light turned green.

“I’m sorry about the wet floor,” said Van Simson, stepping through the doorway. “When the vault is sealed the room is flooded with a couple of inches of water, which I then run a high-voltage current through. Just another little precaution.”

The vault was a low, rectangular room perhaps fifty feet long and thirty feet wide. Large waist-high stainless-steel display cabinets were scattered through the room, the black rubberized floor meandering between them like a path through a maze. The floor was wet, as Van Simson had predicted, and a channel perhaps half a foot wide ran all around the room between the floor and the wall where the water clearly drained away.

“Welcome to the Van Simson collection,” he said grandly. “This is now the largest private collection of gold coins and ingots in the world. It’s taken me almost my entire life to assemble it.” He led them gleefully past the first few cabinets like a child showing off his favorite toys.

Each cabinet had a clear glass top and six or seven narrow drawers beneath them. Above each cabinet was a thick sheet of glass, suspended between the ceiling and the cabinet below with steel wire. Each was dimly lit by an individual spotlight. Apart from these small islands of light, the room was quite dark.

“Look at these,” Van Simson said, bending down over one of the glass tops. “Greek staters from around 54 B.C.” He looked up, his eyes shining. “These were struck to finance Brutus and the republican army in their struggle against Octavian and Marc Anthony after the assassination of Julius Caesar. They were discovered on the very battlefield where the republicans were finally defeated.”

He sprang to another cabinet, sliding one of its drawers open.

“And look here.” He pointed down into the velvet-lined drawer. “Nazi ingots recovered from Lake Lunersee.” Tom and Jennifer leaned forward and saw the unmistakable stamp of an eagle surmounting a swastika, circled by oak leaves. “The gold came from Dachau,” Van Simson went on, lovingly picking up one of the deep yellow bars and cradling it in his hands. “From teeth and wedding rings.”

Tom chose to ignore Van Simson’s gruesome trophy. Instead he focused on the sheets suspended over the cabinets, which he could now see actually contained coins that had been sandwiched between two panes of glass so that both sides could be seen, while ensuring they remained chemically sealed from the atmosphere.

“Come,” said Van Simson, slamming the drawer shut and sounding suddenly impatient. “Over here.” He led them to the far end of the room where there was a small raised platform, with a desk and various pieces of computer equipment and television monitors. The display cabinet nearest the platform was lit with a slightly brighter light than the others and Tom guessed that this contained the highlights of the collection. As they approached, Tom recognized the now familiar detail of the Double Eagle.

“Here it is, then,” said Van Simson triumphantly. “As I promised. The only 1933 Double Eagle in private ownership, safe and sound. These sheets are bulletproof. I can assure you, my coin’s not going anywhere.”

“I would have to agree with you,” said Jennifer, studying the coin closely.

“So why are you really here, Agent Browne?” Van Simson’s voice was suddenly cold and distant. She returned his stare firmly.

“I think I’ve explained that.”

“I heard what you said, but I don’t think you’ve told me everything. What are you going to do about this fake Double Eagle?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I had a deal with the Treasury.” Van Simson had raised his voice and it was echoing off the low ceiling. “They promised that mine was to be the only coin on the market. That there were no other coins.”

“That deal still stands, as far as I know.” Jennifer’s voice was calm and assured.

“Except that you’ve found a coin that you and presumably your experts believe to be real, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. That was not what was agreed. A fake fundamentally undermines the value of my investment and creates a huge amount of uncertainty in the market. You must destroy the coin.”

“I can assure you,” said Jennifer soothingly, “that as soon as we find out exactly what we’re dealing with here we’ll let you know. And I’ll make sure your views are known.” Van Simson’s face lifted.

“That’s very kind.” He smiled. “I hope you don’t think me rude, but I feel quite passionately about this. A lot of money is at stake.”

“I understand.”

“Well, then, if you’ve seen enough, can I ask you to make your own way back to the elevator. It will take you upstairs and Rolfe will see you out.”

“Of course,” said Jennifer, shaking his hand. “And thank you again for your time.”

“Not at all. And I hope that we’ll meet again, Mr. Kirk.” Tom nodded as he in turn shook Van Simson’s hand.

They weaved their way through the display cases, the vault entrance a blindingly bright rectangle of light until, just as they were about to step out into the corridor, Van Simson called after them.

“You know, this is where I plan to be buried, one day.” His arms extended to take in the room in front of him. “Down here, sealed inside with my collection. Then I will have them all to myself forever.”

Through the suspended glass sheets Tom could see that Van Simson had stepped up onto the raised platform. Illuminated by a single spotlight directly over his head, his eyes had sunk into dark pools of shadow.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Rolfe’s achromatic stare vanished with a shudder as the heavy wooden door swung shut behind them.

“So what do you think?” said Jennifer as they crossed the street and walked back toward the Place des Vosges and the car.

“About what?”

“About what we just saw.”

Tom buried his hands in his trouser pockets.

“You’re the detective, not me.”

She stopped and turned to face him, annoyed. It was one thing to be unfriendly. To be honest, she didn’t expect anything less. But being deliberately obstructive was not part of their deal.

“We’re meant to be helping each other, remember. This is going to be a lot easier on both of us if you play along.”

“I don’t think cop, okay.”

“Fine.” She shrugged in frustration and set off again, shaking her head at his obstinence. “I’ll think cop for both of us then, shall I? We learned that his coin is safe and sound. In fact, it would take a small army to get to it. And… ”

“And?”

“And I think we learned that he already knew there was another coin. He acted surprised when I told him about it but his eyes barely flickered.” Tom nodded, stepping aside to let past a mother pushing a large baby buggy. “He certainly didn’t seem as surprised as I would have guessed he would be.”

“Yeah, but that could mean anything. Like Harry said, Van Simson is well plugged in. It doesn’t prove he was involved in taking them and even if he was, we don’t know how. Or what the link was between him and the priest?”

“Ranieri?”

“Yeah. Where does he fit in to Van Simson’s world?”

“I’ve told you what I know. He stole money from the Vatican Bank and then surfaced here a year ago and set himself up as a fence. He was a small-time player.”

“Exactly. So what was he doing handling an eight-million-dollar coin? That was way out of his league. So what we need to find out is who gave him the coin to sell in the first place.”

“We could go and check out his apartment?” Jennifer suggested brightly.

“Where did he live?”

“Porte de Cling… something.” She reached into her bag for her notebook.

“Porte de Clignancourt. That figures. I hardly expected him to be off the Champs Elysées. Haven’t the police been all over it?”

“Yeah, but how closely do you think they looked?” If there was one lesson she’d learned over the years it was to trust the evidence of her own eyes over the assurances of others, especially local cops. “They probably couldn’t wait to close the file. As far as they were concerned, someone had just saved them the trouble of taking another scumbag off the streets. We might notice something they didn’t.”

They were back at the car now and Tom slid behind the wheel and started the engine.

“It’s your call,” he said as Jennifer got in. “I’ll drive us there if you want to go and take a look. But if you ask me, it’s a waste of time.”

“Lucky I didn’t ask you, then,” Jennifer snapped back, again finding his attitude frustrating. She took her notebook out of her bag and leafed through it. “Rue du Ruisseau, number seventeen. You know it?”

Tom nodded.

“Right next to the flea market. But I’m telling you, it’s a waste of time.”

He pulled out and accelerated down the street, the tires drumming over the worn and rounded cobbles.

Behind him, a dark blue car pulled out from where it had been half-hidden behind a white van and followed them, the passenger talking into his phone.

CHAPTER FORTY

They stopped the car and looked around warily before getting out. The trees that had once lined the handsome street had long since gone, strangled by the thick air and stale light. The graffiti, loud markings of despair and hate, had been sprayed up to head height across the high ashen walls like the inside of a prison cell. The washing hanging at half-mast out of the windows above them flapped limply in the breeze.

They approached number seventeen and pressed the buzzer. A few seconds later a torrent of indecipherable French crackled out from the intercom.

Tom said just one word.

“Police.”

There was a pause and then the door buzzed open. Tom gave Jennifer a smile but she just pushed past him with an angry shake of her head.

“Impersonating a police officer?”

“Got us in, didn’t it?”

They made their way inside, their footsteps echoing in the smooth vaulted passage that had once sheltered horse-drawn carriages but now housed instead two large green wheelie-bins that gave off the sickly-sweet smell of rotting food. The concierge was standing at the foot of the stairs to meet them, a white-haired old woman, her face aged into deep vertical furrows, the game show on her TV flickering through the open door behind her.

“We would like to look around Father Ranieri’s apartment,” said Tom, his French faultless.

“You the police?” Her voice was frail and brittle.

“That’s right.”

“Got a badge?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s see it?” Her hands were clasped together, her thin wrists swollen by arthritis, each gnarled finger buckled and deformed into two sets of rigid claws.

“Don’t give me any trouble, old woman.”

The concierge paused and looked Tom and then Jennifer up and down, mumbling under her breath about procedure and bullying.

“What floor?”

“Top. Room B.”

“Is there an elevator?”

“No.” The concierge jerked her thumb behind her into the courtyard. “Stairs.”

Tom nodded and led Jennifer past the concierge, into the courtyard, to the stairs. Five minutes later, their footsteps began to echo back down toward them off the domed glass roof that covered the top of the staircase. They reached the landing and saw that six pallid doors all led off a long, cheerless corridor.

“This must be it,” Jennifer said.

The door on the left was sealed with blue-and-white police tape and an official-looking sign had been stapled to the door. Tom nodded.

“I’ll get us in.”

“No need,” said Jennifer, producing a small lock pick from her bag and bending down. “I can manage.” She fiddled quietly with the lock before gently turning the handle and pushing the door open. The tape ripped away.

They stepped into a small room, the only light coming from a smeared and curtainless window. A narrow bed was placed against one wall, its mattress propped up on the wall next to it. A small refrigerator hummed, the door open but the light clearly broken. Clothes had been pulled out of the dresser and wardrobe and lay strewn across the bed and the floor.

A chipped white sink stood in the far left-hand corner, while next to it a single gas ring, connected to a bright blue gas bottle, had been balanced on a cheap laminate table. Tom tried the light switch, but the bulb was missing. Cobwebs weaved across the ceiling.

“What a shithole!” she exclaimed.

“What were you expecting?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know… more than this, anyway.”

“This was your idea, don’t forget.”

“Well, we’re here now, so we might as well take a look around.”

Tom shrugged and began to work his way round the room, tapping the walls and examining the floor. Jennifer did the same, looking behind the wardrobe and moving the bed out from the wall. It wasn’t long before they had covered the whole room and met back in the middle.

“So much for that,” said Tom, glaring reproachfully at the room around him. “There’s nothing here.”

“It was worth a try.”

“Was it?”

“Maybe the French police aren’t as careless as I thought. Maybe—”

“Hold on,” Tom interrupted her. “There really is nothing here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there are some clothes, a bed, a stove, even some books.” He kicked one across the floor and it buried itself under a bright red shirt. “But I can’t believe he was living like this. No food, no pictures. I mean, there’s not even a curtain.”

“No curtain?” Jennifer gave a short laugh. “So what?”

“Have you ever tried sleeping in a room without a curtain? It’s hard unless you want to wake up at four in the morning. You would have expected him to fix something up, even if it was just a sheet or a towel or something.”

She shrugged, silently conceding that he had a point. It was definitely unusual. Meanwhile, Tom had approached the window and was staring through the filthy glass at the jumble of roofs, TV aerials, windows, and chimney pots that stretched out before him. He shook his head and looked down. A chair was on the floor that had presumably been overturned during the police search.

He righted it, pushing it back to what he guessed was its regular spot under the window, judging from the dirty line where its back had rubbed against the paintwork over the years. Then, just as he was about to turn away, he caught sight of the brown material that covered the chair’s seat. It was covered in dusty footprints.

“That’s strange.” He crouched down next to it for a closer look.

“What is it? What have you found?” Jennifer stepped forward.

“I wonder if… ” He opened the window and stood on the chair, before stepping up and out onto the roof into a wide gully and heading to his right.

Jennifer jumped up after him and followed him along the gully as it traced the perimeter of the building, stepping up slightly as she crossed over onto the roof of the adjacent building.

Here a swirling wind was whistling in and out of the chimney pots and she soon found herself wishing that she was wearing flat shoes as she negotiated the cables and lengths of electric cord that had been untidily laid across the roof like trip wires, carefully lifting her feet over each one.

But then, just as she was stepping over the last set of cables, a particularly vicious gust threw her slightly off balance. Instinctively she put her foot down, only for her long heel to catch on one of the wires. Almost as if it were in slow motion, she felt herself falling, her hands grabbing at the air, her feet disappearing from under her, until she fell hard against the roof and began to slide down the slope toward the courtyard.

“Tom!” she screamed, somehow grabbing onto a piece of cord that brought her to a shuddering halt, although the way the wire had cracked and frayed suggested it would only provide a temporary reprieve.

“Tom!” she called again, scrabbling with her knees and feet to stop herself from sliding any further down the steep roof. Her left shoe came off and cartwheeled down the slope, stopping inches from the edge.

Tom suddenly appeared and threw himself to his stomach, straining with his hand to get to her. She reached up, her fingers desperately trying to grab his hand but remaining, agonizingly, inches apart.

“Put your foot there,” Tom called out urgently. “Now push up.” She found the small ridge that Tom was pointing at and set her foot against it, but still she couldn’t reach him. “Don’t move.”

Jennifer nodded dumbly, too terrified to speak, the cord increasingly slippery in her perspiring palms. Tom disappeared. The seconds ticked agonizingly by.

“Where are you?” she called as a cramp began to set into her hand where she was gripping the cord. “Tom?”

Silence.

Slowly a terrifying possibility dawned on her. She screwed her eyes tight and tried not to think about it, but it just wouldn’t go away. The possibility that Tom had deliberately lured her up onto this roof. Had he left her there, taking the opportunity to make his escape once and for all?

Then, just as the cramp was spreading to her legs and she thought she couldn’t hold on any longer, a thick black cable, its end freshly cut, slid down the roof next to her.

“Grab onto that.” Tom had reappeared just over the crest of the roofline. Gratefully, she reached across and gripped the cable. Tom hauled her up until she was able to bring her knee up over the ridge and roll over onto her back, her chest heaving.

“Shit.” She gasped with relief.

“You’re welcome.”

“I thought you were going to leave me there.”

“You really don’t have much faith in people, do you?” said Tom, who sat down next to her, rubbing his arm where he seemed to have strained it pulling her clear.

“My shoe,” she suddenly exclaimed, scrambling to her feet. “I need to get it.”

“Well, I’m not going down there.” Tom stood up and brushed his trousers down.

“I can’t leave it. They cost me five hundred bucks.”

“Five hundred. Jesus.”

“Shoes is sort of what I do for fun,” she said defensively.

“Fine. Give me the other one.”

“What?”

“Do you want it back or not?”

“Yes.” She slipped the other shoe off her foot and handed it to him, a suspicious look on her face. Without saying a word Tom aimed and then threw it, catching the trapped shoe full on and sending them both tailspinning off the roof down to the courtyard. Jennifer could barely believe it. He’d just played marbles with a pair of five-hundred-buck shoes.

“You bastard!” she shouted.

“You can pick them up when we’ve finished,” said Tom, and she was certain that he turned away from her just in time to conceal a smile.

Still fuming, she followed him along the gully for another few yards, treading carefully through the bird mess that pockmarked the silvery roof now that she was barefoot. It eventually ended at another window, this one covered with dark red curtains. Tom pushed against it, but it seemed to be locked firmly shut from the inside.

“What are we doing up here anyhow?” Jennifer asked, now wishing that she hadn’t suggested they visit Ranieri’s place at all.

“Clutching at straws,” said Tom, examining the smooth slope of the roof around the window before turning his attention to the window frame itself. He ran his fingers slowly around its flaking edges until, underneath the sill, he felt the outline of a small button. He pressed it and although it made no noise, this time when he tried the windows, they opened easily into the room, pushing the red curtains aside. Jennifer stood wide-eyed behind him, her anger suddenly forgotten.

“Okay. I forgive you for the shoes.”

“A dummy entrance is a fairly common trick if you’re trying to avoid people dropping in on you unannounced. From what you’ve told me of Ranieri, he wasn’t exactly short of people who might have liked a quick word. Anyway” — he lowered himself into the dark room — “let’s see what we find before you forgive me.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

They had stepped into the bedroom, and the contrast with the apartment they had just come from could not have been more marked. It was immaculately arranged, the dark blue bedspread coordinating perfectly with the elaborate Chinese wallpaper and the cream rug on the polished wooden floor. A few framed photographs had been arranged on the bedside table and the mirrored doors that ran down the far wall opened to reveal a wardrobe of suits, shirts, shoes, and ties, all sorted by color, alongside the paraphernalia of Ranieri’s ecclesiastical dress. Clearly whatever he did, it paid well.

The bedroom led onto a large kitchen, with the front door set into the right-hand wall. An archway opposite gave onto an office with a large desk at one end. Here, the darkness was lifted by a synthetic red glow as the late-afternoon sun filtered in through the closed curtains. Tom and Jennifer stood on the threshold and peered inside.

“Here you go,” said Jennifer. She had found a switch beside the entrance and turned it on.

“Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Tom made his way to the desk and began leafing through the papers on it before moving to the drawers. There was nothing there. Invoices, faxes, orders. It seemed that Ranieri had been running some sort of wine-importing business as a cover.

In a way, he was surprised he was bothering looking at all, given his natural aversion to working with any sort of cop, especially a fed, although Jennifer was clearly not the sort of thick-skulled flatfoot that he was used to dealing with. Quite the opposite, in fact. But Tom was also the sort of person who liked a challenge. And, if truth be known, he was also rather intrigued by these coins and how they had found their way from Fort Knox into Ranieri’s hands, although he would never say as much to Jennifer.

“This is what we need,” said Jennifer, picking up an electrical cable that led from the desk to a socket in the wall. “His laptop. Maybe someone else has been here before us and taken it?”

“Maybe it’s been hidden somewhere here?”

“I’ll go and take a look in the bedroom,” she volunteered.

Tom sat down heavily in one of the chairs and let his eyes play over the room, looking for something, anything that could help. The furnishings were uncompromisingly modern. The coffee table and desk matched, smoked glass laid on a brushed steel frame. The black leather sofa and chairs were stiff and stubby, their backs set at a steep, uncomfortable angle that pushed Tom’s knees up to his chest. The walls were white and punctuated by a series of black-and-white photographs of New York landmarks. The triangular wedge of the Flatiron building, the streamlined chrome of the Chrysler building, the granite thrust of the Empire State.

Faced with the monochromatic masculinity of the room, Tom’s eyes were irresistibly drawn to the red wastepaper basket that nestled in the curve of the desk’s legs. He picked it up distractedly, noting its ragged and chipped surface that suggested an old and familiar possession, still pressed into loyal service despite its bold variance to the overall color scheme.

Reaching in, he pulled out a newspaper. Nothing strange in that. Except… maybe the date?

“When did you say Ranieri was killed?” he called through to Jennifer.

“The sixteenth. Why?” her voice echoed back through the silent apartment.

“I might have something here.”

Jennifer walked back into the room, her face expectant.

“I just found this paper. It’s dated the twentieth. That’s four days after Ranieri was killed. So someone else has been here.”

“And probably destroyed or taken anything useful,” she said, her voice disappointed.

“Except… ” Tom indicated the room around them. “Take a look at this place. It’s not been trashed like the decoy apartment, has it?”

“Meaning?”

“That whoever it was, they knew this place and didn’t need to tear it apart. They knew how to get in, where things were kept, everything.”

“Maybe he had a partner?” Jennifer grimaced at the unforgiving rigidity of the chair as she sat down opposite Tom. “Someone who’d been here before with him.”

“Someone German, perhaps?” Tom suggested, holding up the paper he had retrieved from the trash. “Our mystery guest reads the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung. In fact… ” Tom examined it more carefully. “Don’t you think it looks like he folded it open at this article in particular?”

The paper had been neatly folded into four, forming a large rectangle that opened much like a book. One article dominated the middle of the front page, while the other pages were dissected and broken by competing articles, ads, and photos.

“What does the headline say?” Jennifer got up and moved over to Tom, sitting next to him on the arm of the sofa.

“Suche geht weiter für Schiphol Flughafen-Diebe,” Tom read out. “Search continues for Schiphol Airport thieves,” he translated.

“Schiphol? Schiphol in Holland?”

“You know another?” asked Tom.

“Cute.” Jennifer made a face. She extracted her mobile phone from her purse and dialed a number. “Max Springer, please.” There was a pause. “Max, it’s Jennifer. Fine, thanks. Are you at your desk? Great. I want you to check something out for me. Can you see what you’ve got about a theft from Schiphol Airport a few weeks ago. Yes, of course Schiphol in Holland.” She winked at Tom. “You know another?”

“What are you thinking?” Tom asked. She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece.

“We get daily crime reports from Interpol. They’re filed into our databases. Whatever happened at Schiphol should be in there somewhere.” She snatched her hand away from the mouthpiece. “Yeah, hi, I’m still here. You found something, okay, great. Run me through it. Slowly.” She jotted down some notes on a scrap of paper that she grabbed from the desk. “Okay… okay. Is that it? Great. What’s that? I can’t talk to him right now.” Her eyes flicked to Tom and then back down to the ground. “Tell him I’ll call him tonight. Thanks, Max.” She hung up.

“So?”

“There was an armed robbery from the customs warehouse at Schiphol Airport on July eleventh. Three guys snatched a fortune in vintage wine and jewelry in a hijacked UPS van. Killed two guards. Then ten days later on the twenty-first, a man was stabbed in a phone booth in Amsterdam. Dutch police identified the victim as Karl Steiner.” Jennifer looked down at her scribbled notes as she spoke. “An East German with a record as long as your arm for armed robbery and handling stolen goods. When they got to his place they found several cases of vintage wine and what was left of the jewelry.”

“In other words, he pulled the airport job,” said Tom, standing up.

“It gets better. It turns out he was arrested on the fourteenth. In Paris. Apparently he’d started a fight outside a nightclub. Guess who bailed him out the next morning?”

“Ranieri?” His tone was more hopeful than questioning.

“You got it.” Jennifer smiled triumphantly.

Tom rubbed his right temple, his forehead creased in thought.

“Well, that’s it, then. You’ve been trying to work out how Ranieri got the coin, haven’t you? How this carefully constructed Fort Knox robbery went wrong. Now we know.”

“We do?”

“Amsterdam’s a major trade hub. All sorts of valuable merchandise comes through there, some of it legally, some not. Let’s say Steiner decided to help himself to a piece of the action. He knocks off the airport and steals a vanload of wine and jewels. But what if he got lucky? What if when he unpacked it all, he found the coins hidden in one of the boxes?”

“You mean it was all just an accident? Months of planning, hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment ruined because some hood got lucky?”

“Why not? A courier would have been too risky, given how tight airport security has been recently. Cargo was a much safer option since most of it never even gets unpacked. I should know, I’ve used it myself. Steiner probably had people lined up to take the wine and the gems off him. But the coins — they were unusual. He needed help for those.”

“Right.” Jennifer could see where Tom was heading. “So Steiner came to Paris to see his old friend Ranieri. Maybe gave him one of the coins to get him started. But before Ranieri could sell it, someone tracked him down and killed him. When Steiner heard what had happened he came back here, grabbed his stuff, threw his newspaper in the trash, and ran back to Amsterdam, presumably with the other coins.”

“And wound up dead a few days later himself. Stabbed, just like Ranieri.”

“Didn’t Harry say that there were only a small number of people in the world who would be interested or able to buy coins like these?”

“What’s your point?”

“That it’s just possible, you know, that both Steiner and Ranieri ended up trying to sell them back to the same people who’d had them stolen in the first place.”

Before Tom could answer, the edges of the newspaper fluttered, the pages lifting and then settling again with a faint rustle. Jennifer’s eyes snapped to the open doorway.

“Did you shut the window behind you?” she whispered.

“I think so, yes,” Tom whispered back.

He slid off the sofa and flicked the switch, plunging the room back into darkness before stepping toward the doorway, pressing his back to the wall, Jennifer standing behind him.

They waited and listened, the silence strangely amplifying the sounds drifting in over the rooftops. A distant siren, a window slamming, a squeal of brakes, a baby crying. But then, through all these, a different noise. A faint creak, followed a few seconds later by another. Noises that could only be coming from inside the flat itself. From someone treading on the floorboards.

The footsteps drew irresistibly toward them like the steady beat of a muffled drum, only accompanied now, so close were they, by a faint rustle of fabric. Then, just as suddenly, they stopped and Tom knew that whoever it was must be standing just on the other side of the doorway. Readying themselves.

A gun barrel edged into the room, black and polished and snub-nosed. And then a man’s hand, white and pudgy, with large gold rings on each of the fingers and a spider’s web tattooed onto the soft mound of skin between the thumb and the forefinger.

Without hesitating, Tom reached forward and grabbed the man’s wrist, locking his fingers over the top of the man’s thumb and tightening his own thumb over the lower wrist joint. In the same movement, he spun the man’s hand round so that it went through 180 degrees and then snapped it back up toward his body. Tom immediately felt the connective tendons and ligaments rupturing and snapping all along the wrist joint as the gun dropped from the man’s fingers to the sound of his screaming. Tom loosened his grip on his wrist and scooped the gun off the floor. The man, whose face neither of them had yet seen, leaped back from the entrance, howling in pain.

“I’ll shoot the next person that tries to come into this room,” Tom shouted.

There was silence and then the sound of retreating footsteps and then two muffled voices that seemed to be coming from the bedroom.

“They’re probably deciding which is worse,” Tom whispered. “Trying to take us on in here or going back empty-handed to whoever sent them.”

The doorbell suddenly rang out, a shrill medley of electronic chimes that flooded the apartment with noise. In the deep silence that followed, they heard the sound of running feet fading away across the rooftops.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The bell rang again, more insistently this time. Tom crept out into the kitchen and then, keeping close to the wall, made his way to the front door. Again the sound of the bell rolled through the empty flat, only this time it was accompanied by the dull thud of someone banging a fist against the wood. Tom edged his eye toward the chrome peephole that had been drilled into the middle of the door.

“Shit,” he whispered through his teeth. “Shit, shit, shit.” He screwed his eyes tightly shut and leaned his head against the door, shaking it slowly. This was the last thing he needed.

“Who is it?” Jennifer mouthed, still standing in the doorway to the living room, a curious look on her face. Without answering, Tom slipped the gun in his pocket, reached down, unbolted the door and opened it. The light from the corridor billowed into the room like a dense fog and made him squint.

“Ah, Felix, mon ami. I hope we did not disturb you?” A broad man with a cheery face and long curls of oily hair that were tied into a thick black ponytail peered into the darkness of the room, his arm extended. Jennifer recognized Felix as the name that Piper had claimed Kirk had operated under for the last ten years.

“Bonjour Jean-Pierre. You’d better come in,” said Tom grudgingly, shaking his hand. The man signaled at the two policemen standing on either side of him to wait. Jennifer flicked the lights back on, as Tom shut the door behind the man. “Jennifer, this is Jean-Pierre Dumas, from the DST — the French domestic secret service. Jean-Pierre, meet Special Agent Jennifer Browne of the FBI.”

“Enchanté.” Dumas shook Jennifer’s hand, his breath pure Lucky Strike. “These must be yours.” He glanced at her still-naked feet and held up her shoes in his left hand.

“Thank you.” Jennifer glared at Tom as she brushed the dirt and dust off each of her feet before slipping the shoes back on.

“Do you have any papers, mademoiselle?” Dumas asked when she stood up.

Jennifer reached into her jacket pocket, pulled out her FBI badge and handed it to him. He wedged his cigarette in his mouth and examined it skeptically, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

“So, Felix really is working for the FBI. Maintenant j’ai vraiment tout vu.”

“I’m not working for the FBI,” Tom said tersely. “We’re cooperating, that’s all.”

“That’s right,” Jennifer interjected. “Mr. Kirk is here as a private citizen. Nothing more.”

“He always is,” Dumas said with a wave of his hand. “Come. Let’s sit down and we can discuss all this properly.”

He led them through to the sitting room and sat down reluctantly on one of the sofas, his weight barely depressing the cushion’s stiff springs, while Tom and Jennifer sat opposite. Dumas was dressed in a new pair of jeans, blue shirt over a white T-shirt and a heavy black leather jacket. He looked strong, although not particularly fit or fast. His brown eyes twinkled above his large, blunt nose, his face slack from alcohol and nicotine.

“So, my friend.” He turned to Tom. “What brings you back to Paris?”

“You two are friends?”

“Well, maybe not friends,” Dumas agreed. “Tom never likes to get too close to anyone, do you? But we have an understanding that is as close to friendship as I expect Tom will ever get.” Dumas smiled.

“I want you to tell her, J-P,” Tom said, insistently. “Tell her how we met.”

“Are you sure?” Dumas looked uncertain but Tom gave a firm nod of his head. Shrugging, Dumas continued. “Felix was having some problems a few years ago now. He had become, how you say, surplus to your government’s requirements. He came to me and we helped him disappear on the understanding that he would help us recover an item of national importance.”

“So you were telling the truth about that?” Jennifer said softly with a shake of her head.

Dumas turned back to face Tom, his face suddenly serious. “But now you are in trouble again, yes?”

“Why, what have you heard?”

“Do you know a Detective Sergeant Clarke? He certainly seems to know you.”

“That bastard,” said Tom, darkly. “Does he know I’m here?”

“No. And don’t worry. I won’t tell him.”

“Thanks, J-P.” Tom smiled gratefully.

“Anyway, when I heard that he wanted you for murder, I knew it was a mistake. Self-defense is one thing, but you are no killer.”

“How did you find us?” Tom asked.

“We have been watching your friend Van Simson for several months now. We suspect him of involvement in money laundering, bribery, blackmail, maybe even murder… he’s a dangerous person to know.”

“So you followed us from there?”

“Oui. I put someone on it. But you surprised us all when you came here. Nearly as much as when mademoiselle’s shoes fell out of the sky and just missed my head.”

Tom held his hand up.

“My fault. Sorry.”

Dumas waved it away.

“The gendarmes have been staking this place out for about ten days now. They are investigating the murder of an Italian priest. But I expect you already knew that.”

“They know about this apartment?” asked Tom in surprise, secretly impressed that they had found it, too.

“They are not complete idiots,” said Dumas, his smile contradicting him.

“Well, we’re not the only people to have been here. Someone’s already been and taken anything that might have been useful.” Tom indicated the laptop cable dangling from the desk. Dumas rolled his eyes.

“Plus ça change. They probably wouldn’t have seen you come in, either, if we hadn’t told them to look out for you both. Which leaves the question.” He turned his gaze to Jennifer. “What are you doing here?”

“Mr. Kirk is assisting the FBI with an inquiry that we are conducting.”

Dumas’s jaw set firm.

“And that gives you the right to break into a private apartment, does it? To impersonate a police officer? To contaminate a crime scene?” Jennifer was silent. “Let me ask, Agent Browne, has your embassy requested assistance from the Ministre de l’Intérieur?”

“I would have to check with Washington.”

“Well, let me save you the trouble. They haven’t. So effectively, you are here as a private citizen, too. An illegal immigrant, in fact, since my colleagues in customs don’t seem to have any record of you entering the country.”

“I can assure you—” Jennifer began but Dumas cut her off.

“There is a French word for that sort of behavior that I think translates well. Espionage. You may think the rest of the world is yours to do as you like, but here in France, we do not appreciate foreign agents operating unofficially. A small matter of national security.” Dumas’s eyes flashed and as far as he could while sitting down, he had pushed his chest out and straightened his back to emphasize his point.

“Mr. Dumas, I apologize for any offense caused.” Jennifer was respectful but firm. “My visit here was unplanned and so I was unable to go through the usual channels. However, I am sure that the American ambassador would be able to vouch for me and allay any concerns you might have about my intentions here.”

Dumas snorted.

“I’m sure he will. Meanwhile, I want to know why you’re interested in Ranieri? And what he’s got to do with Van Simson?”

Jennifer smiled and shook her head.

“That’s classified information that I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to disclose to you.”

“He’s a very dangerous man.”

“When I want to be patronized I’ll let you know.” Jennifer’s response was terse. “Believe me, I’ve dealt with far worse. I can look after myself.”

“Then there are two ways of doing this, Agent Browne,” Dumas said slowly. “Either you share what you’ve got with me and I’ll do the same in return. Or I let the two gendarmes who are waiting outside arrest you.”

“We both know that my embassy would have me released in hours,” Jennifer said with a shrug. “It would achieve nothing.”

“Maybe not. But I can assure you that I would see to it that the incident attracted widespread media coverage. Your picture splashed over the newspapers. Your superiors in Washington compromised. It’s a situation that I expect is in everyone’s interest to avoid unless you wish your investigation to end early.”

There was an awkward pause during which Jennifer and Dumas stared stubbornly at each other until Tom broke the silence.

“Ranieri was found in possession of a valuable coin, which was stolen from the U.S. government.” His interjection earned him a furious look from Jennifer.

“Drop it, Tom.” she exploded. “That’s not for you to reveal and you know it.”

“I don’t think any of us have got time to play games. Jean-Pierre is not the sort of person to go shooting his mouth off and none of us can afford to have our asses dragged through the press. So why don’t you just tell him what you know?”

“If it helps,” Dumas said with a shrug, “I know of this coin. This Double Eagle.” Jennifer didn’t react. “Don’t forget that it was the French police who handed the coin over to the FBI in the first place.”

This time Jennifer glanced at Tom, who nodded his encouragement.

“He’s on your side. He already knows about the coin. Hell, he might even be able to help you. What have you got to lose?”

“You think that Ranieri was fencing the coins for whoever stole them?” Dumas prompted her gently.

“Yes.” She nodded, her voice initially hesitant but growing in fluency. “And we’re interested in Darius Van Simson because he’s a major collector of gold coins. In fact, he even owns a Double Eagle. I wanted to establish whether he knew anything about the theft or the current whereabouts of the coin.”

Dumas smiled.

“Let me guess. Mr. Van Simson knew nothing about either. He never does. It is like a religion with him.”

“Yeah, I did kind of get that impression,” Jennifer agreed.

“He did take us down to his vault, though,” Tom reminded her. “Showed us his collection and his coin.”

“Then you got further than most,” said Dumas, raising his eyebrows. “From what I hear he never takes anyone down there.”

Dumas’s radio frazzled loudly and he reached into his pocket with annoyance to turn the volume down.

“Patron?” The muffled voice vibrated from inside his jacket. Dumas rolled his eyes, took the radio out and pressed it to his mouth.

“Oui.”

“Patron. On les a pincés en bas.”

“J’arrive.”

Dumas replaced the radio in his pocket and smiled at Tom.

“It seems my men have bumped into some friends of yours downstairs.”

“Oh, them.” Tom smiled. “You know who they are?”

“They followed you here from outside Van Simson’s. Of course he’ll deny having sent or even seen them before.”

“One of them dropped this on his way out. Perhaps you could return it to him.” Tom retrieved the gun from his pocket and placed it in Dumas’s outstretched hand. He accepted it with a nod.

“Bon. There is nothing more we can do here,” Dumas said, standing up, arching his back as he made his way to the door. He hadn’t noticed the newspaper lying on the coffee table and Tom managed to snatch it and slip it under his jacket just before he turned round.

“Where are you two staying tonight?”

Tom shook his head.

“We’re not sure yet.”

“I’ll book you something.”

“That’s not necessary,” said Jennifer. “We can take care of ourselves.”

“J’insiste,” said Dumas without smiling. “And if you want any further cooperation from the French authorities” — he held her FBI badge up in one hand — “then I suggest you go through the official channels. Otherwise, tomorrow, I expect you both out of the country.” With a flick of his wrist he tossed her badge toward her and she snatched it out of the air.

“Go over to the Hôtel St. Merri in the Fourth,” said Dumas as they emerged onto the street. “Tell them I sent you. They’ll give you a couple of rooms.”

“Merci, Jean-Pierre,” said Tom, shaking his hand firmly as Jennifer got into the car.

“De rien, mon ami. It’s good to have you back.” Then in a quieter voice. “What are you doing mixed up in all this, Felix? The FBI? C’est pas ton style.”

“Like I said before, it’s a short-term gig. She gets her coin back, I get whoever killed Harry Renwick. That’s it.”

Dumas nodded and looked at Tom, then at Jennifer, then back to Tom.

“Be careful.”

“What? Of Van Simson? Don’t worry, if those two were the best he’s got, I’ll be fine.”

“No, I mean of her.” Dumas winked. “A woman like that can be dangerous. Make you do things you shouldn’t. Don’t forget how they treated you last time.”

Tom somehow mustered a smile.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Tom threw his head back under the shower’s massaging pulse and closed his eyes, letting it run through his hair. The water flooded his ears, blocking them, and as he listened to his suddenly amplified breathing and the strangely distant sound of the water splashing all around him, the dull throb in his head subsided a little. It was only then that he realized how tired he was.

He slid the cubicle door back a bit and a thin cloud of steam escaped through the narrow gap into the bathroom, fogging the mirror. He reached out toward the sink, his eyes blinking as they fought against the water running in rivulets off his head, and closed his fingers around the small complimentary bar of soap and bottle of shampoo that the hotel had thoughtfully provided.

He rubbed the soap all over himself, rinsed it off and then washed his hair. He reached toward the sink again and located the small razor that had also been provided, somehow managing not to cut himself as he shaved. Then he stood there, his hands leaning against the chipped tiles and flaking grout, the water thudding onto the base of his neck, sluicing over his shoulders and down his back. He turned the temperature up a little.

How had he ended up here? He’d almost forgotten now. Uncle Harry. That was it. He’d wanted to find Harry’s killers. To make them pay.

And to help himself. He couldn’t deny it. Jennifer’s deal offered him a real chance. His file wiped, the CIA off his back, Clarke warned off. Could he trust them, though? Could he trust her? He still wasn’t sure.

He flicked the water off and grabbed first one, then another, towel off the rail over the bath. He dried himself, the rough cloth rasping over his skin like sandpaper, smoothing his hair into shape with his hand. Then he pulled on clean underwear, a pair of jeans, and a T-shirt, all in the bag of clothes provided by the ever-efficient FBI. Finally, he laced up the sneakers that he’d shoved on that morning when the police had first shown up. He stepped out into the bedroom and then made his way down the narrow staircase to Jennifer’s room on the floor below. He knocked.

“Come in.”

“I’m just going down to see about getting us a table at the restaurant next door.”

Jennifer nodded.

“Okay. I’ve got to make a phone call anyway. I’m going to suggest that we go to Amsterdam and follow up on this Steiner angle.”

“Fine. But don’t forget our agreement. Unless you get my deal confirmed, you’ll be going on your own.”

“Understood,” she agreed.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“Sure.”

She stepped into the bathroom and Tom noticed the smooth muscle of her neck as it curved into her perfect brown back. He shook his head ruefully. That was exactly what Jean-Pierre had meant about her being dangerous.

A few moments later he emerged onto the street below. The pale buildings glowed a deep yellow as the sun melted into the horizon and the stone began to radiate an intense baked-in heat. The streets were already alive with people and the noisy cafés and restaurants spilled their eager customers out onto the street under an array of brightly colored umbrellas, lit from underneath like lanterns. Innumerable conversations ducked under the buzz of scooters and climbed over the growl of traffic on the nearby Rue de Rivoli.

The area was notorious for prostitutes and, looking up, Tom noticed that one of them had already opened her window and placed a small red towel over her balcony. It was the usual signal. She was open for business.

“Tom. Over here.” At the sound of his name Tom spun round to face the table he had just walked past.

“All right?” came the voice again, this time accompanied by a wave.

Archie was virtually unrecognizable. A baseball cap, T-shirt, and shorts formed an effective camouflage amidst the crowds of tourists. The camera hanging round his neck and the knapsack at his feet completed the image. A pair of sunglasses sat on his face, his stubble rougher than before. It seemed to be some sort of disguise, although for what purpose Tom couldn’t say. In any case, he was too surprised to comment.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Have you been inside? There’s an art deco mirror behind the bar. Saw one like it sell for ten grand a few months ago.”

Tom grabbed him by his T-shirt and lifted him right out of his chair.

“What are you doing here? What are you playing at?”

“Easy, tiger,” said Archie, his sunglasses half off his face.

“How did you find me?” Tom snapped.

“Jean-Pierre called me this afternoon,” Archie croaked, the collar of the T-shirt pressed against his throat. “He was just returning a favor, that’s all. Honest, mate.”

Tom relaxed his grip slightly.

“What did he say?”

“That you were in Paris. I dusted off my passport, jumped on the next Eurostar and gave him a bell when I arrived. He told me he’d sent you here.”

“He didn’t tell me that he’d called you when I saw him.” Tom’s voice was edged with suspicion.

“Maybe he wanted it to be a surprise, I don’t know. Anyway, I’m here now.”

Tom stared at Archie for a few seconds before letting him go so that he slumped back into his chrome seat. Archie pushed his sunglasses back on his nose as Tom sat heavily in the chair opposite him.

“What do you want, Archie?”

“We need to talk. There’s all sorts of shit flying around. None of it good. It’s a real dog’s breakfast.”

“Why, what have you heard?”

“Word is you clipped old man Renwick. It looks bad.”

“Do you think I did it?”

“Don’t be daft.”

Tom leaned back, sighed, and rubbed his eyes. He signaled to the waiter who came over and took their order.

“Bloody foreigners,” Archie grumbled. “Never serve proper beer, just this fizzy shit.” He eventually settled with a grunt on the lager he deemed least offensive. Tom, predictably, ordered a vodka tonic.

“I’ve been set up, Archie. I had dinner with Harry last night. Next thing I know Clarke tries to nail me for whacking him. Says that my prints are everywhere.”

“Why would someone try to set you up?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“Is it anything to do with the bird?” asked Archie, his eyes flicking back toward the hotel doorway.

“How do you know about her?” Tom snapped back.

“Keep your hair on.” Archie looked around nervously at the people at the neighboring tables. “Jean-Pierre told me you were with a bird, that’s all. Seemed to think she might be giving you a spot of bother.”

The waiter returned and deposited their drinks on the shiny table, slipping the bill under the edge of the blue Pernod ashtray. Archie reached into his backpack and pulled out two mobile phones, checking each of their screens for messages or missed calls and then placing them on the table, their color screens reflecting rainbows in the sinking sunlight.

“You could say that. She works for the FBI.”

Archie half stood up.

“The FBI! Are you having a laugh?”

Tom motioned at him to sit down again.

“I wish I were. Apparently, they got a DNA match from the New York job. The only reason they haven’t picked me up is because they think I knocked off Fort Knox and want to try and cut some sort of deal with me.”

“Fort Knox?”

“I’m in it up to my neck, Archie, and they’ve got me by the balls. They can prove I had nothing to do with Harry’s death but won’t unless I help them recover what was stolen from Fort Knox. If I do, then they’ve promised to wipe my file clean, too.”

“And you believe them?”

Tom nodded and Archie gave a short laugh. He took the phone nearest to him, checked the screen again and then began to spin the phone around on the table in front of him with a flick of his fingers. Every so often his gold bracelet clinked against the edge of the table.

“They’re all the same, these coppers, mate, whatever fancy initials they give themselves. To them, people like you and me are the enemy. If they can milk us for a while, they will, but when the time comes, they’ll do us over just like that.” Archie snapped his fingers. “You should know that better than anyone.”

“I do.” He hesitated for a few seconds. “I know it’s stupid but I don’t think she’s like that.”

“Oh, do me a favor! You barely know her.”

“No, but I know people. And I think she’s being straight with me.” Tom was surprised at the confidence in his voice.

“She can promise you anything she bloody well likes, but it’s the people telling her what to do you need to be worried about. They haven’t promised you shit.”

Tom nodded.

“Not yet, but what—”

“Anyway, how can she prove that you had nothing to do with Renwick’s murder?”

Archie picked up his second phone and checked the screen with a quick glance before replacing it and resuming the spinning of the other one.

“Because she was at the dinner with me. Apparently, Harry did some work for the FBI a few years back and they wanted some more help on this Fort Knox thing. She saw me leave and that Harry was alive when I did. She had agents watching me all night who can vouch for the fact that I didn’t leave my house or call anyone.”

“And then the next morning she shows up like Mother fucking Teresa offering you a deal?”

“That’s about it.”

“Wake up, Tom. She’s a federal agent, not your fairy godmother. What do you think fires her up most, you or her job? Christ, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d had Harry whacked in the first place just so you’d help her.”

Tom had a sudden chilling thought. Jennifer had known where to find him. The plane in Kent, the car and the clothes in Deauville, it had all been so smooth, so efficient. So convenient. Was Archie right? Was he missing something?

“What happens when these witnesses disappear rather than back up your story in a few weeks’ time?” Archie continued, his sceptical tone unrelenting. “What happens when Clarke turns up and suddenly she isn’t around anymore to help out like she promised? What happens when another CIA assassin tries to stick a bullet in the back of your head to finish the job once and for all?” He glanced at the screens of both phones again.

“You got any other suggestions?” Tom drained his glass.

“Yeah. You get up from this table right now and you walk away and you take your chances on the run. At least there you’ll see them coming rather than get knifed in the back by people you thought you could trust. You’ve done it before.”

“That was different. I had something to trade with the French. The CIA thought I was dead and stopped looking for me. That trick only works once.”

“I can help you,” Archie pleaded, his hands gripping the side of the table. “Come and do this job for me. Get the other egg. I’ve got it all nailed down in Amsterdam. The money for that will set you up somewhere else. I’ve been thinking about a change of scenery myself. Maybe we could go together. Hong Kong? Buenos Aires? You choose.”

“Is that what this has been all about? This fucking job? Do you ever think about anything other than money?”

“I think about staying alive. So should you. I can have your gear ready by tomorrow, latest. The egg’s in a private collection. You know that one we looked at a few years ago and called off? Two, maybe three guards, max. It’ll be easy as pie.” Archie snapped his fingers to emphasize his point. One of his phones rang and he snatched it off the table.

“Yeah… well, you can tell him from me that he’s—” Tom grabbed the phone out of Archie’s hand and dropped it into his largely untouched beer.

“Are you listening to me now? I’ve told you no. I won’t do it.” Tom raised his voice as he said this, his finger stabbing toward Archie. With an angry look, Archie rescued his phone from his glass, wiping it on a paper napkin. The screen had gone blank.

“Are you listening to yourself? You’re going to put all your trust in the same people who betrayed you ten years ago. And you’re going to blow out this job and have Cassius after you, too. It’s not just bad odds, it’s bloody suicide. At least if you walk away and do the job, you’ll only have the Old Bill to worry about. And we both know you can deal with them.”

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Tom stood up and leaned down toward Archie, his fists resting on the table between them. “If I do what you’re suggesting, I’ll be on the run for the rest of my life. Always looking over my shoulder, unable to trust anyone, running away from shadows. That’s not a life worth living. Yes, it’s risky, but what she’s offering me is the best chance I’ve got of getting out clean. If there’s even the smallest chance that could happen, I’ve got to go for it.”

Archie shook his head and took the back off his dripping phone. A trickle of beer fell onto the table as the plastic cover was released. He looked up at Tom reproachfully.

“And Cassius?”

“Cassius? I don’t know. I’ll just have to deal with him when I see him. If I see him.”

“So you’re not even going to think about it, then?”

“Okay, I’ll think about it if that’s what you want me to say. But you need to think about finding someone else to do that job and soon.”

Archie shook his head, the dying embers of the sun reflecting off first one sunglass lens, then the other.

“If you make the wrong decision, Tom, it’s going to cost us both. I guarantee it.”

He picked his remaining working phone off the table, checked the screen, stood up, adjusted his glasses on his head and melted away into the evening.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Jennifer’s hair was wet and her shoulders still glistened with hundreds of dew-like water droplets as she slipped her panties on and fastened her black lace bra. Then she sat on the edge of the narrow bed and stepped into her black jeans, maneuvering them up her long legs, lying back and lifting her hips up in the air as they slipped around her waist.

She was still hot from the shower and stepped to the window to let some air in, only remembering at the last minute to hide from the street below behind the net curtains that alternately rose and fell in the slight breeze. Her silvery flip-top phone began to vibrate frantically on the dresser. She paused for a few seconds before answering it, knowing who it would be, wanting to make sure that she was fully composed and had all her facts in order. She knew that the conversation she was about to have might be a difficult one.

“Hello.”

“Browne? It’s Bob Corbett.” The clipped, rapid-fire intonation immediately confirmed her suspicions. Jennifer kept her own answers short and to the point, as she knew Corbett preferred them.

“Yes, sir.”

“How are you getting on? Tell me you’ve got some good news. Christ knows, I need some.” He sounded tired and anxious and she guessed that Piper and the others must have been giving him a hard time since Renwick’s murder and the loss of the coin.

“We’re making some progress.”

“Good.” He sounded relieved. “What have you got?”

“We went to see Van Simson as agreed. His coin’s still there. But we — I mean I,” she corrected herself quickly, knowing that Corbett was the sort of person to read all sorts of implications into that sort of slip of the tongue, “sensed that he knew more than he let on. He acted surprised, but maybe not surprised enough. I think he already knew about the coins.”

“Anything else?” He didn’t sound impressed, although then she knew he rarely did.

“We went to Ranieri’s apartment but it was a decoy. Kirk found his real apartment and a German newspaper, dated a few days after Ranieri’s murder, which had an article mentioning a robbery from Schiphol Airport.”

“Oh, yeah?” Corbett sounded more interested now.

“I got Max to look into it. Apparently a few weeks after this Schiphol robbery a German wound up dead in Amsterdam, stabbed in the chest just like Ranieri.”

“What’s the link?”

“When the Dutch police went to this guy’s apartment, they found some of the gear taken in the airport job.”

“I don’t follow.” She could sense a slight tension in his voice, as always when his patience ran low.

“His name was Carl Steiner and guess who bailed him out of jail a few days before he got killed.”

“Ranieri?”

“Exactly.”

“So what are you saying?”

“It’s just a theory, but what if whoever stole the coins from Fort Knox tried to smuggle the coins back to Europe by hiding them in a freight shipment? Then this German guy, Steiner, got lucky at the airport and one of the packages he stole had the coins in it. Steiner knew Ranieri and so came to Paris to ask him to fence one of the coins for him. Then when Ranieri got killed, Steiner went back to the Netherlands, leaving the newspaper we found behind. A few days later, he got killed, too.”

“And your conclusion is…?”

“That the same person killed both Ranieri and Steiner,” Jennifer said firmly. “That this person was probably someone they were trying to sell the coins to. And given the small universe of people who would actually be interested in the coins, it’s even possible that Ranieri and Steiner tried to sell them back to the same person who’d had them stolen in the first place.”

There was a pause until Corbett spoke again and although she felt confident about what she’d just said, the silence was still an uncomfortable one.

“It makes sense,” he said eventually, to her relief. “In any case, it will give me enough to keep Piper and Green happy and buy you a few days. But you need to get to Amsterdam. Soon.”

“I was planning to drive there tomorrow.”

“Good. Meanwhile, I’ll see what else I can dig up about the airport robbery and the murder and get it to you. That reminds me, by the way — we got Renwick’s phone records. He made two calls that night, both to cell phones.”

“And?”

“They were both taken out in dummy names. One in the U.K., one in the Netherlands.”

“The Netherlands? You think there’s a link to Steiner?”

“No way of knowing. The phones are dead now. Maybe he was calling round to try and generate a bit of interest himself.”

“Well, clearly one of the calls hit home. Problem is we don’t know which one or who it was to.” There was a pause. “What do you want to do about Kirk?” She tried to ask the question casually, not wanting him to think she was especially bothered.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, did Secretary Young go for the deal or do we need to cut him loose?”

“Oh, that. Yes, I think we can live with that. As long as he keeps his side of the bargain and buries this whole Centaur thing.”

“Good.” Almost immediately she wished she had allowed herself at least a brief pause before answering to signal her indifference too Tom’s fate in case Corbett misinterpreted it as a sign that she was getting too close. He didn’t disappoint.

“Don’t get too friendly, Browne.”

“I won’t.”

She shook her head ruefully. She wasn’t losing perspective, of that she was sure. But there were certain things that didn’t add up and she wanted them explained.

“You need to watch out for Kirk,” Corbett continued.

“I know. It’s just—”

“Just what?”

“I don’t think that Piper gave us the whole story about Kirk.”

“You mean he didn’t murder his handler?”

“No, he admits he did that. But he says that he was double-crossed. That the CIA tried to have him killed and that he only acted in self-defense.”

“And you believed him?”

“Of course not,” Jennifer shot back. “At least not at first. The thing is the French secret service confirmed his story.”

“The what?” Real concern in Corbett’s voice now. Jennifer shook her head, annoyed with herself. This wasn’t coming out like she’d wanted it to.

“They caught up with us in Ranieri’s apartment. Followed us there from Van Simson’s, who apparently they’ve had under surveillance for months. They know Kirk. Told me that his story checked out. All of it.”

“The truth is, Browne, that we can’t be sure what happened back then. But even I would sooner take Piper’s word than the word of someone who has spent his whole life lying to people. At the end of the day he’s a crook, plain and simple.”

“I don’t deny he’s a thief. But what if he’s right? What if Piper trained him up and then cut him off? Wouldn’t that make us at least partly responsible for what he’s become? I’m not sure what choices we’d left him.”

“Okay, Browne, I take your point,” Corbett conceded. “Maybe there is more to this than Piper’s let on. But we can deal with that when this is over. Believe me, I’ll be the first one to stick it right up Piper’s ass if I find out he’s lied to us. But in the meantime, you just gotta drop it. Kirk is not your problem. Getting the coins back and whoever took them is.”

“I know that.”

“You gotta stay sharp and alert. Focused on the job at hand. If you’re not, I’ll pull you out right now. No questions asked.”

She could tell from his tone that he wasn’t joking. And she could see Corbett’s point. Raking this whole thing up wasn’t going to help her solve this case. And certainly the last thing she wanted was to be taken off it. Better just to tell Corbett what he wanted to hear and keep her thoughts to herself for now.

“No, I’m good. You can count on me to do whatever it takes to get a result. My only interest in Kirk is that I think he can help solve the case. Other than that, I don’t care.”

“You’re doing a great job, Browne. Keep it going.”

The line went dead.

A few moments later there was a faint knock at the door. She grabbed a thin black sweatshirt from the back of the chair and slipped it on.

“Come in.” She was still standing by the window, her phone in her hand, as Tom entered.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Sure.” She thought she might be imagining it, but she detected a slightly hostile tinge to his voice. “I’ve booked us a table at the place next door.”

“Great.” She turned her phone off and tossed it onto her bed. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

The restaurant was old-fashioned and busy, smoke lazily rising from between gesticulating fingers, dented cutlery chiming against the dull glaze of white china. Their table was at the back of the room, a slab of cold marble on cast-iron legs, a chair on one side and a bench on the other, its red velvet covering worn and stained. Tom chose the bench, Jennifer took the chair.

A waiter appeared and handed them both menus before lighting the candle that had been jammed into an old wine bottle, its neck thickened by layer upon layer of melted wax. The wick sputtered into life, the flame teasing and dancing as it grew, until its pale glow soared and reflected off the mirrored ceiling back down on to them.

Jennifer looked up from the menu and glanced at the room around her.

“Great place.”

“You can tell it’s good because it’s full of locals.” Tom nodded at the tables around them. A young couple, wedding bands freshly minted. A solitary old woman, wire-wool hair drawn back into a chignon, cracked face caked in white foundation, feeding surreptitious scraps to the Shih Tzu lurking in the depths of her handbag. A middle-aged man, arm ostentatiously draped around the shoulders of his handsome young male lover, reveling in the jealous glances from the two single women at the neighboring table.

“Has it been here long?”

Tom’s head snapped back round to face her.

“Years. Since the 1930s, at least. The Germans used to come here all the time during the occupation and if nothing else, they were always good judges of restaurants. The rest of Europe at war and this place was making a fortune.”

The waiter reappeared and took their order. Green salads to start and then steak for Tom and lamb for Jennifer accompanied by a bottle of Burgundy. The wine appeared almost immediately and Tom tasted it before nodding his approval. Two glasses were poured and the bottle was deposited on the table between them. The salads arrived, big green leaves coated in a thick, mustardy vinaigrette. They ate in an awkward silence, Jennifer’s mind drifting over her conversation with Corbett until Tom spoke, his question coinciding with her own thoughts.

“So is our deal still on?”

Jennifer nodded as she swallowed her mouthful.

“You help us, we help you. The deal stays the same. And when this thing is over, you bury Centaur. Otherwise, they’ll come after you with everything they’ve got.”

“And you believe them?”

“Why shouldn’t I? They’re not interested in you anymore. They just want the coins.”

“What if they don’t get the coins back? What if they change their mind? I’ve got no guarantees, have I?”

“Look, I give you my word on this.” Her eyes met his as she said this and she saw the same suspicion there that she had seen when they had first met. A suspicion that had faded during the day, but now seemed to have returned stronger than ever.

“Your word?”

“If you knew me, you’d know it was worth having.”

The waiter swooped down, carrying off their empty plates with a flurry of his black apron. Jennifer helped herself to another glass of wine, the alcohol helping to soothe her frayed nerves.

“So why the Bureau?” Tom asked after a long silence.

Jennifer smiled, glad for the opportunity to discuss something different.

“It’s in the blood. My father, Uncle Ronnie, Grandpa George, they were all cops. I guess the Bureau was just a small step on from that.”

“And you enjoy it?”

“It’s like any job; there are good times and bad times. But I guess I get a kick from feeling that I’m making a difference.”

“And that’s important to you, is it? Making a difference.”

“Isn’t it to everyone? Otherwise, why bother?”

Tom nodded and again she got the sense he wasn’t actually that interested in her replies, that he was just making conversation. She guessed that he was probably finding their unlikely cooperation as hard as her to reconcile with a lifetime of prejudices.

“So what do you do when you’re not working?”

“Sleep, mainly.”

“Oh.” Tom’s mouth curled into a mocking smile. “Not seeing anyone, then?”

“No,” she shot back, immediately defensive.

“But there was someone?”

“Yes.”

“What happened.”

“He died.” As soon as she said this she wished she hadn’t. This was the one thing she’d buried deep, far away from her own penetrating gaze, let alone that of others.

“How?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She drained her glass and filled it up again, feeling a little light-headed now, the candle smoke irritating her eyes.

Their food arrived and they continued eating in silence, the restaurant quieter as a few of the tables emptied. Their plates were cleared away and Tom ordered an espresso, Jennifer preferring to finish the last of the wine. When the coffee came, Tom stirred it a few times, letting the creamy film on the surface melt into the black liquid beneath.

“So where are you from, Jennifer?”

She was relieved that he seemed to have moved on.

“Do you know Tarrytown? Westchester County?” Tom shook his head.

“New York State. It’s a nice place. Shaded streets, craft stores, shiny red fire engines, active Little League. Safe.”

“And your family?”

“Mom’s a hairdresser. Worked at the same salon all her life. Just retired this year. All she wants is for me to get married so she can have grandchildren.”

Tom smiled.

“Dad’s just the opposite. Very quiet but also real funny. I think he wanted a boy but he got two girls instead, so he just always made us do boy things.”

“Is that why you drive so fast?”

“It’s the only way I know.” She grinned. “Anyway, he left the force five years ago now. My sister Rachel’s just finished at Johns Hopkins. She wants to be a doctor.”

“You get on well with them all?”

“We have our moments, like everyone. But yeah, sure. I don’t see them as much as I should, though.”

There was a pause.

“They must be… very proud of you,” said Tom.

Perhaps it was the sudden sadness in Tom’s voice that hinted at his own loss, or the smoke from the candle, or even the sharp pain of Jennifer’s unspoken guilt. Whichever it was, she suddenly felt incredibly sad.

They were both silent as the waiters pirouetted around their table, suffocating the candles between their saliva-coated fingers with a sharp hiss.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Archie walked up the Rue Denain toward the station’s main entrance, checking the screen of his one remaining phone every so often. Under the streetlights, he could see that the wide area under the building’s neo-Corinthian façade was still busy with Algerian taxi drivers and pickpockets cruising for their next victim. Romanian gypsies, babies carefully positioned in the folds of their brightly colored skirts, begged, their hands dark with henna tattoos, their fingers covered in gold rings.

He sensed the car before he saw it, its headlights staining the road yellow, its tires sucking onto the tarmac as it drew up alongside him. It stopped when the rear window drew level with him, the smoked glass glinting. Archie’s eyes narrowed with suspicion as the window dropped an inch. The dry scent of air-conditioning seeped out onto the street.

“Going somewhere?”

“Do I know you?” Archie’s tone was cautious.

“Yes, and yet no.”

“I haven’t got time for riddles.”

“No. You’re almost right out of time.”

“Cassius?” Archie gasped, his heart leaping in his chest.

“You came highly recommended. I have to say, so far you have done little to suggest that reputation is deserved. Late on the first egg. Now, with two days to go, no sign of the second.” Archie swallowed, wished he had chosen not to walk.

“I know, but it’s been difficult. More difficult than we thought.” As he spoke he tried to peer through the gap in the window. “Perhaps if I had a bit more time—”

“That, unfortunately, is the one thing I cannot give you. I’ve paid you handsomely. Now I expect you to deliver. You know the consequences if you fail.”

Archie stammered out an answer.

“It’s not my fault. It’s Felix. I’m still working on him.”

“That is not my concern.”

“But I’ve got it all planned out.” Archie tried to sound confident.

“Where?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Where?” The voice insisted, the single word dripping with menace.

“Amsterdam,” Archie muttered, his eyes dropping to the road.

“Good.” The voice was more relaxed now. “I will be in touch. Don’t fail me.”

The window whirred back into its frame and the car eased away from the curb and out into the street. A few seconds later, it had gone.