by James Ponti
We entered the bank, and the two other agents instantly took charge. Just by the way they talked it was obvious they’d seen way too many cop movies and pictured themselves as action heroes. Every now and then Kayla and I shared a conspiratorial smirk and shook our heads.
Still, we had to work together, so we took statements and did our best to establish the facts of the robbery. The eyewitnesses all told the same basic story with each providing a unique detail or two.
Here’s what they said:
Two men wearing masks entered the bank with shotguns drawn. They forced all the employees and customers into the vault and locked them inside while they raided the cash drawers. One of the customers saw the robbers getting out of a dark blue pickup truck. A teller noticed that one of them had a star tattooed on the back of his hand. And the bank manager said that, when they left, they sped away south on Oak Street, which is the direction of the train station.
When our time was up, the agent in charge instructed us all to stop.
“It took five minutes for the victims to get released from the vault, five minutes for the FBI to arrive, and ten minutes for you to examine the scene,” he said. “That means your perps have at least a twenty-minute head start and time is at a premium. What do you do next?”
As the lead detectives, the cadets went first, still in full Hollywood mode.
“Roadblocks are pointless; they’ve had too much of a head start,” said one. “Still, we need to put out a BOLO.” He stopped, looked straight at me, and smugly added, “That means ‘Be on the lookout.’ ” Then he turned to the others and resumed. “For a blue pickup truck and a man with a star tattoo on the back of his hand. We should access security footage from any businesses along this road and reach out to our friends in the armed forces because there’s a good chance these two are ex-military.”
“Why do you say that?” asked the man in charge.
“Gut feeling, sir.”
“On top of that,” added the other, “a train left the station at three twenty-seven. We should stop it and perform a hard target search of each car in case they ditched the truck and are taking the train to some sort of rendezvous point.”
“How do you know there was a train at three twenty-seven?” asked the agent in charge.
The cadet smiled, proud of this discovery. “There’s a schedule on the counter. I checked it as soon as I heard what direction they’d headed.”
“Very impressive,” said the agent in charge. “And you both agree with this course of action?”
They nodded with supreme confidence.
“What about you two?” he asked Kayla and me.
We shared a look, and I could tell by her expression that we’d both come up with the same solution.
“Go ahead,” she said to me. “You tell him.”
“Well, that all sounds very good and official,” I said, referring to the other agents’ response. “Especially that BOLO thing. But I think it would require a lot of manpower and resources.”
“You can’t cut corners when it comes to a bank robbery,” one of them said to me.
“All that matters is putting cuffs on the bad guy,” said the other.
“That’s what I figured,” I replied. “So shouldn’t we just arrest the bank manager?”
Kayla and the agent in charge both started laughing, and the two cadets just looked at me like I was speaking some foreign language.
“If he was locked in the vault with everybody else, then he couldn’t have seen which direction they drove off,” I explained. “Unless he’s part of the team and trying to send us chasing the wrong leads. I say we arrest him and put the pressure on him to give up his partners.”
“How old are you, son?” asked the agent in charge.
“Twelve and a half, sir,” I replied.
“Great job,” he said. “I’m pretty sure we’ll all be working for you one day.” Then he stopped and looked at the other two. “Well, maybe not all of us.”
I kind of felt bad for the other two, but Kayla was in heaven as we walked back to the main complex. When we were halfway there we met up with Agent Rivers, who was returning from explosives class.
“It was bee-yoou-ti-ful,” she told him. “These two Hollywood guys are running around all macho, and then Florian solves the case in a second. I think they’re still sitting there with their mouths open trying to figure out what just happened.”
Agent Rivers smiled, a hint of pride on his face.
“I told you,” he said to her.
“You sure did,” she replied.
“Nicely done, Florian,” he said. “So what did you think about your day at the FBI Academy?”
“I liked it. A lot,” I said. “Except for the part about being thrown through the air. That hurt. But I liked the rest.”
“And Kayla?”
“Kayla’s the best,” I said. Then I looked at him for a moment and decided to show off a little. “Of course, you already know that, considering she’s your girlfriend.”
They both stopped walking and gave me a dumbfounded look. I basked in the moment without saying much. It really is my favorite part of solving a mystery—the instant you get to share what you’ve figured out and everybody else gives you that look.
“H-How did . . . ?” he stammered.
“What?” I asked. “Was I not supposed to know?”
17.
The Trouble with Secrets
AS WE WALKED TOWARD THE main complex from Hogan’s Alley, I had a bounce in my step. Not only had I done well in the bank robbery exercise, but I’d also figured out that Agent Rivers and Kayla were boyfriend and girlfriend.
“How did you know that?” asked Rivers.
I smiled broadly and began to reconstruct.
“Well, there were about four clues in all,” I said. “The first was when I got in the car. I’m not exactly tall, but even I had to move the seat back. That means the person who normally sits in that seat is shorter than I am.”
I looked over at Kayla, who stood no more than five feet tall.
“Then I saw the way you talked to her when we first arrived,” I said. “You put your hand on her shoulder and she lit up when she saw you. I could tell you were friends. Maybe even good friends.”
“See what I mean?” Rivers said to her. “He sees everything.”
“It’s good,” she replied. “But it’s not enough. Like you said, we might just be friends. What are the other clues?”
“The biggest one was your name,” I explained.
“How was my name a clue?” she wondered.
“There were two coffee cups in Agent Rivers’s car,” I said. “One had ‘Marcus’ written on it and the other . . .”
“. . . had ‘Kayla.’ ”
“But that wasn’t even the clincher,” I added.
“No?” she asked, smiling, playing along for my benefit. “What was the clincher?”
Before I could answer, Agent Rivers interrupted and said, “The nail polish.”
Now I was the one caught off guard.
“That’s right,” I said, confused. “There was a small bottle of nail polish in the glove compartment. It’s the same color you’re wearing now.” I turned to Agent Rivers, surprised that he had figured this out. “How did you know I’d seen it?”
“Well, that’s the reason I put it there in the first place,” he said. “And the reason I had you look for your wallet in my glove compartment. I wanted you to see it.”
Now I was totally confused. “I don’t understand. Why?”
“It’s part of your training, Florian. Maybe the most important part. The truth is, Kayla’s not my girlfriend. I planted those clues to see if you would put them together. You’re clever, so I had to make them obscure. But I knew you couldn’t resist snapping the pieces together.”
“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “You were trying to make fun of me?”
“No, no, no,” he said. “I would never do that. Florian, I am totally in awe of you. You h
ave a once-in-a-generation gift. There aren’t three agents in the Bureau who would have put all of that together.”
I was still confused by it all. “How was that part of my training?”
“It was a test to see if you could be led in a direction. It’s one reason why it’s so important we keep your identity secret. No one will ever see you coming, which makes your talent that much more valuable. But if anyone knows you’re working for us, they can set traps for you. Just like I did. They can misdirect you.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for it.
“I still say it’s incredible,” added Kayla. “Absolutely incredible.”
She put her finger under my chin and lifted it up so that I looked up from the ground. “It was a total pleasure, Florian.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to shake my suddenly sour mood. “I really appreciate your help.”
She smiled and stared into my eyes until I finally smiled back. Then she turned to Rivers. “It was fun being your pretend girlfriend for a day. You know, if you wanted, you could always ask me out on a date and we could see what it would be like without the pretend part.”
I couldn’t tell how serious she was, but it was the first time I’d seen Rivers flustered.
“I’ll put that under advisement,” he said.
She gave him a hug and headed toward the locker room.
Rivers and I continued walking.
“I’m really sorry, Florian.”
“About what?” I asked.
“About setting you up,” he said. “It didn’t really turn out like I meant. To be honest, I began to think you couldn’t put it together because it was too hard. And when you did, I didn’t consider how it’d make you feel.”
“No, it’s a good lesson for me,” I replied. “Are we going home now?”
“Not yet,” he said. “We still have to stop by the lab.”
The FBI lab was located on the edge of the campus. Rivers flashed a badge to get us past two security points, and we took an elevator to the fifth floor.
“What’s up here?” I asked.
“Ancillary field equipment and devices.”
I gave him a raised-eyebrow look. “You guys really hate English, don’t you?”
“Gadgets,” he said with a laugh. “Very cool gadgets.”
This was where I got my panic button disguised as an asthma inhaler as well as a pair of sunglasses that had a small camera built into the frames.
“What do I need that for?” I asked him.
“You don’t,” he said. “But they’re cool and I thought you might like them.”
I smiled. “That works for me.”
“I also want you to have this SmarTrip card,” he said. “It’s good to ride on any Metro or bus in and around the District.”
“I’ve already got one,” I said. “I use it all the time.”
“Well, this one’s a little different,” he said. “First of all, you never have to put any money on it. It resets automatically, so you ride free forever.”
“Cool,” I said.
“Even cooler is the chip that’s in it. We can track wherever it goes. Like those chips you put into a dog collar in case your dog gets away.”
“Isn’t that what the panic button’s for?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “You press the panic button when you’re having trouble. If you do, we come crashing through the door, so your cover’s blown. This just lets us keep track of where you are.”
“Okay,” I said. “I guess that’s a good thing.”
“Don’t worry, we’re not going to spy on you,” he assured me. “We just want you to be safe. Now let’s go down to the basement to see a friend.”
We rode the elevator to sublevel four and walked against the tide of people leaving for the day until we reached a door.
“Who’s the friend?” I asked.
“His name is Dr. Eduardo Gonzalez and he’s one of the world’s preeminent forensic scientists.” He went to open the door but stopped right as his hand reached the handle and turned to me. “He’s also a little . . . strange . . . but in a good way.”
We stepped into a room filled with the sound of Spanish music and where numbers were scribbled all over the walls. I got the impression the doctor didn’t waste time looking for paper when an idea struck. Experiments appeared to be under way on three different tables, and he was working on the one in the middle. He had wild curly hair and sang along with the music. What he lacked in vocal ability he more than made up for in volume. He was so focused on the experiment (and the music) that it took him about twenty seconds to notice us.
“Old Man Rivers,” he said, looking up from his microscope. “Qué pasa?”
“Not much. How you doing, Gonzo?”
The scientist’s happy mood disappeared the instant he noticed that I was in the room too.
“Who’s this?”
“A friend,” said Agent Rivers. “Johan Blankvort.”
“Buenas tardes,” I said, trying to win him over.
“Buenas tardes,” he said skeptically.
“He’s the one whose grandmother I told you about,” Rivers said to him.
I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, and reading my confusion, Rivers turned to me and explained.
“I told him that your grandmother found a painting in her attic and didn’t know if it was an antique or a fake,” he said to me. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“No,” I said, still unsure what was going on.
“You see, I wanted Gonzo here to run a test to tell us if the paint was old or new. That way we’ll know what we’ve got on our hands.”
I finally realized that this was what he’d done with the paint chip from Woman with a Parasol.
“Except I told him I’m not supposed to use the equipment for unauthorized jobs,” Gonzalez said. “A test like that costs the taxpayers.”
Now I realized that this was also a negotiation.
“How much did it cost the taxpayers?” asked Rivers. “Box seats for the Nationals game?” He pulled a pair of tickets out of his pocket and put them on the table. Gonzalez didn’t pick up the tickets, but he did look at them.
“Yankees game, Sunday afternoon,” he said admiringly. “That might cover the cost of the test. But when you dropped off the paint chip, you also said you wanted the job rushed. The rush costs extra.”
“I thought it might,” said Rivers. “That’s why I brought another pair for the following Sunday.”
He laid another pair of tickets on the table. Gonzalez scooped them up and slipped them into the pocket of his lab coat. “Let me see if the results are in.”
When the scientist ducked into a little office, Rivers turned to me and whispered, “He doesn’t even use the tickets for himself. He gives them to the Boys and Girls Club. He likes to act like he’s tough, but he’s one of the good guys.”
Two minutes later, Gonzalez came back with a printout and handed it to Rivers, who looked at it with total confusion.
“You know, of the three people in this room, only one of us is actually a nuclear scientist,” he said. “You mind translating?”
Gonzalez pointed at some of the numbers on the printout. “See that? It’s strontium.” He pointed to another and added, “And that’s cesium.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
He looked at me over the top of his glasses and said, “It means your grandmother’s picture is no antique. It was definitely painted after 1945.”
Rivers and I shared a look. The Woman with a Parasol hanging in the museum was a fake.
18.
The Dinner Party
THAT NIGHT MY PARENTS HELD a hastily arranged dinner party at our house. Since the get-together was his idea, Agent Rivers wanted to buy and bring the food, but Mom refused, insisting that cooking for six was no trouble.
“All I have to do is double the ingredients of what I was already going to make,” she explained. “Besi
des, anyone who knows me knows I always cook for the guests in my house. If we brought food in, people would instantly suspect we were up to something. And we don’t want that, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” agreed Agent Rivers.
(Of course that’s because they were definitely up to something.)
He’d come up with his plan on the way back from Quantico and spent most of the drive on the phone with my parents and his boss. He wanted to meet with a small team that he could trust and needed to do it away from the Bureau and the National Gallery. Right now the only other people who knew the Monet hanging in the museum was a fake were the people responsible for taking it. He didn’t want to do anything that might attract attention or indicate that there’d been a development in the case. So rather than meet around a conference table at the Hoover Building, everyone sat around the kitchen table at our house.
The other guests were Serena Miller, director of security at the National Gallery, and Oliver Hobbes, the representative from the insurance company. Luckily, both lived near us, so they were able to come on short notice. They were under the impression it was a social gathering until we were about half way through my mom’s chicken risotto. That’s when Agent Rivers stepped into another room to take a phone call.
“Sorry for the interruption,” he said when he returned. “But there are some important things we have to discuss and I had to wait for approval before I could move forward.”
“Does that mean there are new developments in the case?” asked Hobbes.
“You could say that,” answered Rivers. He hesitated for a moment before dropping the bombshell. “A fourth painting has been stolen.”
There was silence around the table as they waited to see if this was some sort of joke. Even my parents, who’d already heard the news, looked shocked all over again.
“You can’t be serious,” gasped Hobbes.
“I’m sorry to say that I am.”
“Then what are we doing here?” asked Miller urgently. “We need to get to the museum.”
“No, we don’t,” said the agent, making a calming motion with his hands. “That’s why I asked Francesca and Jim to invite you here. This is where we need to be. This is where we need to develop our strategy.”
