by Dale Nelson
Randall Heidegger was worried, rightly, that they were sitting on a potential terror target with echoes of the 1972 Munich Massacre.
A judge that made a bizarre ruling in a burglary didn’t quite rise to Heidegger’s level of concern right now.
Heidegger introduced her to his liaison with the Paris Police, a wiry haired detective named Henri, and then disappeared back into the folds of counterterrorism. Danzig found French law enforcement to be entirely illogical and confusing and was glad to have a guide. The country had two national police forces, the Police nationale and the Gendarmerie nationale, but Paris, because of size, tradition, and primacy had its own, separate police reporting to the Ministry of the Interior. Henri was an inspector with the Police judiciarie, who were charged with conducting criminal investigations. Danzig found him to be good police, hardworking and a sound investigator. There were a few initial hurdles to navigate, language chief among them. Danzig spoke no French, and Henri was a typical Frenchman, meaning he understood English but pretended that he didn’t. The French in general, and Parisians specifically, had a love of language that bordered on the fanatical. Many would outright feign ignorance of other languages so as to force conversation in French. Initially, Henri was no different, though in his case, Danzig came to believe the behavior was out of tradition. They overcame that quickly, and she found his English to be quite serviceable, if a little rusty from lack of practice.
“These judges, they are shit,” Henri said from behind a wall of smoke. The only thing about him that made this arrangement difficult was that the man habitually chain smoked. Henri always said, “shit” in English, even if he was speaking in his native language. French was too beautiful a language to capture the essence of it, he’d say.
“You know they got to the judge. It’s the only explanation.”
He shrugged, but it was very noncommittal. “Who is to say? But you ask me, I think those men knew they were getting out.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Feeling. They were so smug, so cocky during interrogation. They weren’t afraid of us.”
Judicial corruption was the last thing Danzig thought she’d have to worry about here. It also seemed out of character for Burdette. There was something about the notion of him paying off judges that didn’t fit his profile. It wasn’t until she was standing there, on that Paris sidewalk, that she first began to question what Burdette was doing here in the first place. The take would have been, if they’d gotten it, around eight million dollars. A worthy sum, certainly, but Jack had made off with over one hundred million in 2013. He shouldn’t need to work again. Yet here he was on camera. Danzig didn’t want to spend too much time dwelling on motive, but it was worth pursuing when she had time.
With the cases thrown out, there wasn’t much more that she could do here. As far as the French legal system was concerned, Jack Burdette was free and clear. The men all stuck to their stories of this “Hans the Hand” bullshit. She’d need to be able to prove it was actually Burdette without his accomplices flipping on him, and with more than just a partial photograph.
“So, what do we do now?” Henri asked.
“The ones who were released, let’s follow them and see where they go. Chances are they leave the country, but it’s possible that one of them tries to get in touch with Burdette. Stay on top of Villareal. If his lawyer can get him extradited, I promise you he’s good enough to get him out of any jail time in Spain. I’ll get in touch with the FBI Legal Attaché in Madrid. Let’s also figure out everything we can about those attorneys.” Henri gave her a quizzical look. She could read in his expression that he wasn’t expecting anything but “goodbye.”
“I don’t know,” Henri said. “The case is closed, yes?”
“We have a saying in America. ‘It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up.’ If this judge decides not to pursue the matter, that means either he’s been bought off or they had something on him. You caught one of the thieves with the jewels on his person. That’s a slam dunk conviction.” When Henri didn’t offer up a rebuttal, she continued. This was surprising for both of them, because the French had one of the lowest levels of civic corruption in Europe. It was not like being in a former Soviet republic, where you could just walk into a courtroom with a bag of dollars. “You have to look at the judge.”
“I don’t know,” he said, exhaling smoke. “What can we prove? You get a bad reputation with the judges, cause trouble for them, all of a sudden your cases never make it to court. Or when they do …” Henri just shrugged again.
“Then the lawyers. We can find them easily because their names will have to be registered with the court. If they falsified that, that’s a crime in and of itself. We find them and probably track it back to Burdette. It’ll take a while longer, but I think we can do it.”
“I will have to see. I will ask, but I don’t know how much my department is going to want to push this.”
“If you’re worried about blowback, Henri, I can cause some trouble on your behalf.”
Henri laughed. “I like you, Katrina. I hope another one of your countrymen robs a bank or something so we can work together again.” They shook hands, Henri said adieu and waved his right hand in a wide arc. Danzig caught a cab back to the embassy.
Danzig headed straight for the LEGAT office when she reached the embassy. It was early evening and past close of business, so most of the official personnel at the embassy were already starting to filter out for the day, but the bureau staff was still heads down working. Most would be there until well into the evening. Danzig really enjoyed he overseas posting and desperately hoped to earn her way back to one, however long those odds might be, but she remembered that while it was thrilling, it was also wall-to-wall work and never enough hours in the day. She found Randall Heidegger at a table in the center of the office with one of the TDY agents. They were standing over a map of the city that had numerous areas outlined in different colors. Though she didn’t know the specifics of it, she knew it was part of the antiterrorism plan for the World Cup.
Danzig hovered for the exact amount of time that could be considered “professional” before tapping Heidegger on the shoulder to get his attention. He was so engrossed in the map, he didn’t even know that she was there. “Hey Katrina, what’s up?” he finally said. His voice was slightly distracted, and she knew that he was busy. During her short time here, Danzig had come to respect Heidegger. A LEGAT assignment was a tricky one. You had to balance the FBI’s mission with the embassy’s, had to be available to both staffs, and often was negotiating between the two for resources, support, or to just broker information. And that was in addition to the attaché’s own caseload. It was an exercise in constant context switching. Heidegger handled it well.
“The French are closing the Hôtel Ritz case. They’re saying the evidence doesn’t support the charges. Two of the guys are already on the street. Villareal is being held, but his lawyer is working extradition back to Spain. We expect the other one in custody to be processed out within a few days.” She paused to allow time for the sputtering, the invective, and the what-the-fucks. “I assured our Paris Police contact that the US Government was not suspending its investigation and that we still believed the ringleader was an American, even though all four of the men in custody swore that the man who planned this was a German.”
“So, what’s your plan now?”
“I’ve asked Henri to follow the lawyers, but he thinks that his department won’t want to rock the boat with the courts and won’t pursue this. Everything looks shady as hell, but it’s hard to prove. Once I find out who the lawyer is, I’m going to reach out to LEGAT Madrid to see what they know.”
“Okay,” Heidegger said, and she could tell that was not the message he was hoping to hear. Given the pressure from Ambassador McMillan, Heidegger wanted this wrapped as quickly as possible. Unlike most criminal investigations, heists tended to unravel fast once the bureau got involved, but this one was different, and Burdette had be
en able to cut that off at the knees.
“Honestly, Randall, I think the way to get this guy is not for the robbery. We get him on passports.”
“I don’t follow.”
“We already know that he lives under a very carefully crafted alias. I promise you that he didn’t travel here under Frank Fischer, and State has no record of a passport issued to Jack or John Burdette that matches his description and age. The way we nail him,” she said, tapping her finger on the table, “is passports.”
Passport fraud was a much steeper charge than attempted robbery. After having seen the surveillance footage, and without cooperation from his accomplices, Danzig knew a good defense attorney would get that thrown out as insubstantial. But if she could prove that he was here illegally using a forged or stolen passport, she could charge him for every passport he possessed. That carried a maximum sentence of ten years for each count.
Danzig might not be able to nail Burdette for the Carlton job and the damage that did to her career, but she could sure as hell OJ him.
Heidegger stood and stretched. “Okay, let’s do this. I’m going to introduce you to Austin Harris. He runs the DSS section here. We’ll need to brief the ambassador’s people as well. This is going to get complicated because the ambassador wants to show that we are being tough on Americans who violate the host country’s laws. Prosecuting someone for robbing a jewelry store is an easy sell. Passport fraud doesn’t get headlines.”
“Jesus Chris,” Danzig blurted out, “we don’t have time for this shit. What does it matter if we can’t prosecute on the robbery? We can get him on—”
“Katrina,” Heidegger broke in, holding up both hands, “listen, you really need to appreciate the politics of this situation.” He spoke in a tone that added extra weight to the words. The look in Heidegger’s eyes carried a hard-earned wisdom. Danzig saw the message between the lines.
She checked herself, so much so that she took an actual step back from Heidegger.
“Let’s get DSS involved and stay in touch with Henri and see where that goes. I’ve got maybe five more days of TDY budget for you, and then I have to bring in a counterterrorism specialist to help us prep for the World Cup. If you can’t make something related to the robbery stick in that time, we’ll need to close that end of it and let DSS run with it from there. Are we clear?” There was no menace or malice in his voice. He was asking out of genuine concern for her.
The Diplomatic Security Service was an arm of the State Department that provided protective services to heads of state and diplomats. They also acted as regional security officers, conducting threat and risk assessments for their embassy’s area of responsibility. And they investigated passport fraud.
Heidegger authorized and funded her TDY—government speak for “temporary detached duty”—so she was, effectively, working for him. He could cut this off and send her back to her primary post whenever he wanted, so she knew that she couldn’t afford to piss him off. Danzig hoped that Heidegger had the institutional courage to let her pursue this where the case took her, rather than being cowed by political exigencies and optics, but she also appreciated the position Heidegger was in. It should seem obvious that the ambassador would want this case pursued to its natural conclusion and that they should get Burdette however they could.
Danzig also had a niggling fear that the French government wouldn’t want to heavily publicize that one of their judges might have been compromised. She expected this to get swept.
Five days to find Burdette.
Fifteen
Jack sat at the airport bar in Madrid waiting on his flight to Alicante, still questioning the wisdom of his decision. Aleksander hadn’t taken the news well that Jack didn’t have the jewels. He was even more curious as to why Jack was calling to tell him that he was on his way back to Alicante, why he wasn’t under the darkest rock in the deepest depths of Africa. Jack explained that he wasn’t running. Told Aleksander he knew there was no place he could go that Aleksander couldn’t get him. Played his ego. Even saying the words pissed him off to no end. Jack knew he could leave the airport and buy a flat in downtown Madrid, live in happy seclusion for the rest of his life, and Aleksander couldn’t find him. But the Serb knew how to draw him out of hiding, and they both knew it. As long as Aleksander thought that Jack was scared of him, he was pliable.
It took some finesse, but Jack convinced Aleksander not to shoot him on sight. Told him he had a score—a big one. Worth way more to him than the Al Thani Collection. Jack told him if the Al Thani Collection was supposed to put him back on the map, this job would have the map drawn around him.
Returning to Alicante was risky and dangerous. It could very well get him killed.
It was also the only way to end this.
A hundred million dollars could buy a lot of security.
It could also buy a lot of leverage.
The one unanswered question was that if Aleksander knew where the diamonds were, why hadn’t he gone for them yet? The only answer that made any sense was that Guilia had the key piece of information that Aleksander needed. More importantly, for some unknown reason, she hadn’t given it to him.
The safe deposit box number.
Even with that, they still had to break into the bank. And Aleksander would certainly be aware of the consequences. Guilia would make sure he knew who controlled the bank because that gave her leverage. It explained why he hadn’t gone for the diamonds yet, and Jack could guess that’s why Aleksander wanted him to do it.
But not the only reason.
Guilia hadn’t given him the box number, and Aleksander hadn’t tried to force it from her. Or he couldn’t.
What Jack was counting on was that Aleksander believed he needed Jack to get that from her.
It was a long shot, he knew.
Like, moonshot long.
Jack had a glass of wine while he waited on his flight. He called Megan from the bar. It was quiet, not a lot of people around, but he was still cautious as to what he would say. Not to mention being nervous as hell. It went to voicemail. Jack told her that he couldn’t go through with it, the thing they were forcing him to do. He’d rather deal with the consequences of that than have her known he’d done it. Said he hoped that she understood.
His phone rang when the disinterested bartender finally handed him the second glass. It was a number he didn’t recognize. He let it ring twice, thinking through whether or not he wanted to answer. Two more rings went before he picked up the phone, now drawing the attention of a few people at the bar wondering why this guy would just stare at his ringing phone.
“Yeah,” he said flatly.
“Jack, it’s Rusty.”
“Jesus. Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been trying—”
“I got it,” Rusty broke in, cutting him off. “I don’t have a lot of time, and neither do you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Katrina Danzig just burned me with the bureau and the Diplomatic Security Service both, and she flashed my name to INTERPOL, EUROPOL, and half a dozen national police agencies.” Rusty paused for Jack to speak, but he just remained silent, processing. “Listen, whatever you’re up to, you need to drop it and walk away. She’s on you like fleas. APBs are going up all over Europe. Your picture is going to be everywhere.”
This was not happening.
“How the hell is she even involved?”
Last they’d heard, Danzig was pushed to some end-of-the-road assignment in Miami because she’d gone too far trying to bring him down the first time and embarrassed her superiors and got some people in trouble. Of course, the person that he’d go to ask about this was Rusty. And Rusty was now on the run.
“The FBI brought her in because of the Paris job, and the first thing she did was to lock me down. I think she’s cutting off your escape routes.”
“What are you going to do?” Jack asked.
“Same thing you should be doing right now. Looking for a rock.”
Jac
k had never heard Rusty scared before.
“I’m sorry. This is my fault,” Jack said. “Damn it,” though that was mostly to himself.
“No, it’s not,” Rusty told him. “This is what we do, right? It’s always been a crap shoot. But this time …” His voice trailed off, and for a moment, Jack thought he was gone. “Fuck, I don’t know, man. I don’t know how she found me so fast.”
“Unless she was watching you for a while or had someone do it for her. That sounds like her. Keep tabs until she needs it and then pounces.”
“I know I just dropped this on you, but do you know what you’re going to do?”
“No. I have something that I need to take care of first.”
“Don’t fuck around, Jack. Not with this. Danzig is on the warpath.”
“I have to wrap this up, and then I’m gone. I know what I’m doing. I also know that if I don’t, she’s not the only one I’m running from.”
“Sorry I can’t be more help. How many passports do you have on you?”
“Two. Macaulay and Wick.”
“Okay. You should assume that both the Ogilvie and Macaulay identities are compromised. I don’t have a way to confirm it anymore, but you should treat them like it.”
“Good to know,” Jack said, standing up from his table, feeling the sudden urge to move. He began walking toward his gate. Though the last thing he wanted right now was to be stuck in a seat with no control over where he was going.
“I’ve got to go. Good luck with whatever you’re doing, though I really wish you’d reconsider running. I know you well enough not to try and talk you out of it. Look, I’ve got a couple safe houses that I know are clean. That’s where I’m planning to be. If you need a place to hide out, I can arrange something. This is a clean phone, though I’ll probably change it out tomorrow.”
