De Angeles said he was scared by the gunfire and just wanted to get out of there. Terry played along and assured him the safest spot was in the windowless room, and when that didn’t work, she informed him that she and Zhao were federal agents and he was, indeed, “safest” with them.
Burton couldn’t get too far, and they’d get prints off of his vehicle. It would only be a matter of time before they were both nailed, but Abbate was going to have his ass for this. Thank God they at least had the diamonds.
There was a six-foot-tall off-white brick wall that surrounded the complex, except for a pedestrian entry in the northwest corner. Here, the wall transitioned to a black metal fence that came up to the middle of Jack’s chest, and it ran from the brick wall to a higher brick wall with anti-scaling bars that ran along the property’s northern side. The fence was cipher locked, but Jack easily vaulted over it. Rusty had figured this would be the obvious exit for him and was waiting. Jack climbed into the car and said, “Just drive, man.”
They’d done it.
Jack sank into his seat as Rusty accelerated away. The adrenaline crash rolled over him like a great ocean wave, and Jack was suddenly very tired. It didn’t seem real yet. Of course, they hadn’t escaped, not fully, but the diamonds were in their possession, and that was something. Still, it wasn’t going to take the police—and, it would seem, the FBI—very long to figure out that there was no Agent Little with US Customs, there was no joint operation, and those diamonds most certainly hadn’t been brought inside for safekeeping. Jack figured that, on the outside, they had ten minutes.
The original plan called for them to crash at the Beverly Hilton. They had a suite reserved with a ghosted credit card. That was a place that respected privacy, and three men walking in with expensive suits, sunglasses, and light luggage wouldn’t stand out from the scenery. Jack needed to fly back to Sonoma and get his passport. They’d decided that they would fly directly from Los Angeles to Rome during the planning here these last few days. Jack didn’t have his passport with him and would have to return to Sonoma to get it. The others didn’t know. The extra leg would add complexity to an already complicated thing, not to mention that they’d have to wait for him to fly up and back. Now, Jack wasn’t sure the Beverly Hilton was a smart move. Nor did he think that he’d be able to sit still in a room for thirty-six hours. Rusty had them booked on a private charter that was leaving from LAX, but not until the day after tomorrow. Staying in Los Angeles was risky and dangerous. Keeping their original plan of flying out of an airport that was three miles away from the scene was suicidal.
Jack checked his phone. There was nothing from Enzo.
“Head north,” Jack said. “Fast.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Rusty replied, irritated. Rusty guided the X6 past Los Angeles Air Force base and then picked up the 105. They hit the interchange right away and, from their elevated position, got one last look at the scene as they passed it. LAPD air support was back over the building, and there were two or three times as many patrol vehicles as Jack had seen when he was there just minutes ago. Rusty accelerated onto the 405 and took them north.
There was still much to process. Reginald and Vito had walked into a trap. Jack figured that this Pan Pacific was a front company, but he’d assumed it was for a criminal syndicate or just some shady businessmen, not for the FBI. This was very problematic. Reginald knew exactly the tune he would sing. The FBI might be able to prove that the diamonds were stolen, but they couldn’t prove that Reginald knew it—not until it went to trial. They didn’t have any diamonds, so they might not actually be able to charge him with anything. That would be the ideal scenario for Jack. He’d still have a threat to deal with and one who knew just where and how to hurt him, but Jack wouldn’t also have to deal with the FBI.
“That was absolutely a setup,” Jack said after a few miles of silence. Rusty had been off all day, distracted and short-fused. Jack originally put it to nerves. Most seasoned thieves couldn’t pull off a score like this, and there were maybe twenty guys in the world that Jack knew of with the audacity and skill to do what he’d just done. Just walk in and con the police into giving him the evidence? But now that it was over, he expected Rusty to come down, get back to normal.
“Looks that way,” was all he said, though.
“It wasn’t just Inglewood city cops, Rusty. The one that I talked to said they were just there as backup. He said the FBI was leading the operation. I think Reginald stumbled himself into a sting.”
Rusty mumbled something under his breath. Whatever it was, it was an outgassing of frustration and nerves and ultimately not intended for Jack’s ears.
“We need to change our plans,” Jack said. Whatever was going through Rusty’s head, he was going to have to get over it. They had work to do. “We can’t fly out of LAX now. It’s too close, and if Reginald got nabbed, he will talk about us and they’ll be watching local airports.”
“I already booked the plane. We’re going out of a private terminal.”
“It’s a credit card tied to a fake business,” Jack said dryly. “I don’t think we’re worried about cancellation fees. Have them change it. We’ll fly out of a different city. Vegas makes the most sense. It’s close, and there’s a lot of private plane traffic.”
Unfortunately, there was no way to know what Reginald’s fate was. If they had him, the FBI wouldn’t announce it because they’d be shifting focus now to who stole the diamonds out from under them. There was a time that Rusty still had contacts in the Bureau, people who didn’t agree with the Bureau sacrificing him on the altar of bureaucratic exigency, but those people wouldn’t talk to him anymore. Once the DSS got involved, the people who knew him…didn’t know him anymore.
“We’re sticking to the plan,” Rusty said in a flat voice.
“The hell we are, and it’s not your call.”
“I took two bullets over those stones, so yes, it is my call. We have a way out and it’s safe. We’re not deviating from it.”
Jack had encountered thieves before who thought they’d invested more in a job than the rest of the team and therefore earned an unequal stake, but it had been a very long time since someone had questioned his plan, let alone tried to overrule it.
“Rusty,” Jack started, forcing his voice into an even tone. “I appreciate the sacrifices that you made getting us here, but this is still my plan. If you are uncomfortable with that or if something else is bothering you, Enzo and I can handle what’s next. I’ll be honest, I don’t want to go into this thing in Rome without you, but Enzo and I can manage. You’ll still get an even split, but I’d rather—”
“It’s fine, Jack,” he said, his voice sharp. “Maybe you should drive,” Rusty said.
“We’re on the freeway.”
But Rusty was already pulling over. Rusty hit the hazards and guided the BMW over to the shoulder. They hadn’t cleared Inglewood yet, and Jack would be uneasy until they put a lot more miles between themselves and the scene. Rusty stopped the car and put it in park, opened his door. Jack got out as well and walked around the back of the vehicle. Cars rolled past at freeway speed, oblivious to the scene. It was just two men changing up drivers. A canal ran along the right side of freeway, though it was bone dry. The trees on the other side of the retaining wall were mottled green and brown and needed rain. Though the shoulder here was wide due to its proximity to an on-ramp, and there was a good five feet of sun-bleached asphalt between him and traffic, Jack cleared left before moving around to the driver’s side. Rusty had gone the other direction so they wouldn’t have to two-step around each other.
Jack had to admit as he climbed into the X6’s driver’s side that he didn’t have any idea what was going through Rusty’s head right now. Jack was glad to be behind the wheel, however. He didn’t like being a passenger, ever, but now he’d feel like a little more was in his control at least. Jack also realized that he needed to put himself in his friend’s position. Rusty was a fugitive now, and that carr
ied its own weight, one that Jack couldn’t ever truly appreciate.
Because he’d always gotten away with it.
But more than that, Rusty hadn’t been back in the US since he fled. He hadn’t wanted to come back here, but Jack had pressured him into it. That, and he’d forced Rusty into a role he wasn’t comfortable with and hadn’t played before. All while giving the appearance that Jack wasn’t willing to make the same sacrifices that Rusty and Enzo were. Like Rusty told him, he couldn’t do this job and have a foot in both worlds. If they were making a play for these diamonds, Jack had to be prepared to walk away from his other life, to run from it. He wasn’t. Worse, he’d never intended to, and Rusty would surely have sensed that.
Jack put the BMW in drive and accelerated quickly along the shoulder, looking for a break in traffic wide enough for them to merge. The mountains that separated greater Los Angeles from the San Fernando Valley loomed much larger now. After a long, hot summer, they looked much more brown than green. Even from this distance, they looked ready to spark. Jack hadn’t lived in LA for over twenty years, and though it had changed massively in those years, it was still a place that he knew very well. In his early days as a wheelman, Jack’s role had been to get crews to and most vitally from the job. That required planning. Endless hours in stolen cars driving the various escape routes that they might use and committing those routes to memory. He got to know neighborhoods. Jack learned where he could stash a backup car and have confidence it would be there when he arrived, and he learned what neighborhoods he’d rather get caught by the police in than stop for the span of a stoplight. He learned all of the places that you could hide a car.
Jack exited the freeway at Wilshire, one of the last before the freeway cut through the mountains. This was also the route he’d need to get to the Beverly Hilton. He saw Rusty visibly tense when he turned right onto Wilshire, it was subtle and contained, but Jack noticed all the same. Then he understood why. The structure nestled in the armpit of the 405 and Wilshire was the Los Angeles FBI building. It was a massive concrete monolith that looked like a 1960s science fiction writer’s vision of a dystopian future. Jack drove past it, and he could see Rusty relax. Again, it was subtle and not something most people would notice, but Jack knew how to read someone. They drove through the glass-and-concrete canyon of Westwood in silence, but when Jack turned right onto Glendon and into a faded pink parking structure, Rusty knew he was deviating from the plan.
“What are we doing?”
“We’re getting rid of this car.”
“The car is clean,” Rusty said.
“The car was in the parking lot, and that parking lot will have cameras. The police and the FBI will be looking at that footage right now.”
“We can change the plates,” Rusty said. That was true, but it would take him time to find clean plates. Yes, they could take some off of any car and switch them out, but there was always the possibility that the owner would report them stolen. Being the subject of two BOLOs was not something Jack was willing to chance right now. He didn’t know how long it would be before Rusty could get a new set of plates here, but probably it was longer than it would take for them to just switch cars and get out of the city.
Jack snaked his way through the parking garage, looking for a spot. He found one on the fourth level. This was almost perfect. It was an older garage and attached to a public library. The car would sit here for a week or more and no one would notice. Jack also didn’t see the black domes indicating security cameras. Jack pulled into the spot and got out, popping the rear hatch as he did. In the distance, Jack heard the screeching of tires as a car rounded a corner. Rusty met him around the back.
There was a gun in his hand.
25
“Slowly place your hands in the air and then lace them behind your head.”
Jack stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Jack, your hands.” Rusty spoke in a calm, practiced voice.
“What is this, a citizen’s arrest?”
“Jack, I’m not going to ask again.”
“Or. Fucking. What.” Jack held his unblinking gaze on Rusty until the other man flinched and looked away. “If shooting me is an option for you, I’m going to make you do it. There’s no way in hell that I’m letting you steal these diamonds from me.” The next part he said through gritted teeth and with narrowed eyes. “Not without making you earn it, you fucking snake.”
The corners of Rusty’s mouth dropped into a sad frown. “I’m not trying to steal from you, Jack.”
If this wasn’t Rusty making his own play, then what in the hell was it?
Jack’s options were few.
Rusty was at arm’s length. Jack’s hands were still at his sides. There was no chance he could reach, draw, and fire his own pistol in the time it would take Rusty to fire his. No one could miss at this range. Grabbing the weapon was an option, but not a good one, for the same reason as going for his pistol. Rusty was playing this smart. He was partially covered by the car next to theirs and his back was to the garage at an angle, so someone would have to be right up on them to see that he was armed. The pistol was close in, which was terrible for aim, but at this range it wouldn’t matter. Jack would still have to step forward to make a grab for it, and Rusty would see the movement and shoot before Jack could close the distance.
Rusty had trained for situations like this. Jack had not.
Oh, Jack had taken a “combat skills for rich paranoids” that some ex–special forces type taught the eccentric elite because it was exactly the kind of thing Frank Fischer would do. In that class, the instructor taught him that a gun was not a force field and it wouldn’t protect you if an adversary closed the distance between you before you could shoot them. Academically, Jack knew how to do it—drop back and to an angle, putting weight on the back foot while bringing your close hand up to push the gun away. The shooter would fire, but the round would just miss the target. Knowing how to do it and trusting that you could pull it off without getting a round in the chest were two different things.
“Hands in the air,” Rusty said again.
“I told you. You want these diamonds, you’re going to have to kill me to get them.”
“I’m not robbing you, Jack. I’m arresting you.”
Jack threw his head back and laughed. It was large, loud, and nervous, but it was a full-bellied guffaw nonetheless.
“You’re arresting me,” Jack said back to him, recalling a time not long ago when he’d said that it was a slow wit that said back the last thing they heard in a conversation because they were stalling for time. In Jack’s case, he genuinely needed to say it again in an attempt to make his mind believe it.
He kept his hands at his side.
“That badge in your pocket is as fake as mine.”
“They offered me a deal. I get a reduced sentence in exchange for turning over you and the diamonds.”
“Who offered?”
“The DSS brokered it with the Bureau.”
The Bureau. Does this mean Danzig knows about this?
“I’m getting a pardon, Jack. I’ll have to stand for the passport forgery and some other things.”
“Trading on your friends in exchange for what? Five years in prison? Some deal.”
“My friends? That’s what this is?” It was the first time in their exchange that the gun moved. “Jack, the Bureau and I had an understanding when I fled. They weren’t going to look for me too hard as long as I kept a low profile and played by certain rules. I was even working with people in our own intelligence community, solving particular problems. And it worked. They did it because I know some pretty damaging things, and many in my chain of command were worried about what I’d say if I ever went to trial. But all that changed when I started working with you. First, Danzig somehow figured out my real name. How she got to those files, I’ll never know. But once you started taking risks you shouldn’t have taken, taking jobs you shouldn’t have taken, burning through passports and ultimately getting
jammed up with Aleksander Andelić, that was the line for them. All those passports I forged for you, the bank accounts, the Bureau…my Bureau was worried that maybe I was actually playing for the other side. The Bureau came after me hard.”
Rusty’s emphasis on “his” Bureau meant the part of the FBI that dealt in counterintelligence, which he’d often said was almost a separate agency from the law enforcement side. It was a dark and covert world.
Rusty adjusted the position of the gun. “You think this is my real hair? You think that I’ve been living this easy life on the lam in Switzerland? I move constantly. I haven’t spent three months under the same roof since Rome. Meanwhile, you get to live in some goddamn vineyard and preach about how others have to share in the risk. Fuck you.”
Certain things made sense now. When this started, Rusty was the one that pushed the hardest, guilted Jack into going forward with it. He knew exactly the strings to pull on…like a skilled operator. Staying back from the grab today, if Rusty had turned into a CI, he was prohibited from committing a crime even to protect his identity—Jack learned that one firsthand. He’d thought it was nerves at the time. Rusty always played himself as the dashing rogue; Jack never once suspected that he was continually on the run, tired and afraid. He knew the man was a fugitive, but Rusty always portrayed that as a choice, almost a protest against a government that betrayed him.
Tires squealed against the garage floor on the level below them.
Jack waited a moment, but Rusty didn’t say anything. He wasn’t speaking any more than he had to. Smart. There was no apology, there were no salving words of remorse—I’m sorry it had to be you, Jack, but this is how it goes sometimes.
There was nothing but a pistol and a hard stare.
Once a Thief (Gentleman Jack Burdette Book 3) Page 26
