Miguel kept his flashlight shining on them.
The tape recorder was adjusted to allow some lead time. They had to wait for it to say “Meno Sebastiano Argenti.”
Simultaneously, Wiley pulled away the photograph he was holding, revealing the next held by Lillian, who released and showed the photographs one after another in sequence.
The object was to synchronize the motion with the words. The photographs were printed on heavy enough paper so they dropped away swiftly when Lillian’s fingers let them go. Also, their slick finishes helped if they happened to touch.
The problem was being able to do it smoothly within two seconds.
Wiley frequently missed his cue.
Lillian was either too slow or too quick or she fumbled.
It seemed they would never be able to do it.
They tried again and again until their arms were tired and their backs ached from retrieving the photographs from the floor.
They took a break.
“Do you think this will work?” Lillian asked.
“No,” Wiley said.
Nevertheless, they went back to it.
The interruption must have been beneficial. Now it was easier. Lillian seemed recharged with dexterity. There was a flow to the way the photographs fell away, a rhythm that matched the cadence of Argenti’s voice. A perfect timing with the emphasis Argenti placed on certain syllables.
“Me-no …”
“… Se-bas-tian-o …”
“… Ar-gen-ti …”
The part of the wall that was the vault door slid open so quickly it seemed to dissolve.
They were stunned, didn’t react immediately to the bright lights that had gone on inside the vault when it opened. Six inset spots. The lights reflected off the white interior of the vault and out into the main room.
If anyone down on the street, especially a Conduct Section man, should look up and notice the vault room lighted …
Lillian took care of the lights in the most expedient way. With the silencer on, her Llama automatic seemed to spit the lights out.
Inside the vault, Wiley pulled open one of the many shallow drawers of a cabinet. He played his flashlight on its contents.
Uncut emeralds, a crowded layer of them. They glowed green.
Fifty to sixty million dollars’ worth in this vault, Argenti had said. Wiley also remembered the urge he’d had the last time he was there to help himself to a handful of wealth.
Now he could.
But first they should open the other vault, while they were in form.
It took them only three tries with the photographs and the tape before the wall of the second vault slid aside.
Lillian again shot out the lights.
It occurred to Wiley that in an oblique way Argenti had opened the vaults for them. At least he had been a big help.
Lillian got the black nylon duffel bags from her pack.
They went to work. Miguel in the first vault, Lillian and Wiley in the second. The second, larger vault contained more cabinets, more shallow white velour-lined drawers, more emeralds. A hundred and fifty million dollars’ worth, according to Argenti. The emeralds in the first vault had glowed, these blazed. They were better quality. They clicked stone against stone as they were loaded into the duffel bags.
Wiley and Lillian got the loading down to a method.
Not to overlook a drawer, they worked on a cabinet from the bottom up.
A drawer was pulled open. Using the heels of their hands they swept the emeralds into a pile at the front of the drawer. Then they scooped the emeralds up in double handfuls and dropped them into the duffel bag.
It took nearly an hour and a half to empty every drawer in both vaults.
They had about two hundred thousand carats.
Eighty-some pounds of emeralds.
Worth about two hundred million dollars.
They sat on the floor for a rest, their backs against the wall opposite the vaults.
Wiley lighted a cigarette.
It tasted great.
How do you like your tricky vaults now, Meno Sebastiano Argenti? Your empty tricky vaults.
Wiley had a laugh in his gut. He let a little of it out. Stop snickering, he told himself, you’re not out of this yet.
Lillian offered him a carrot stick. She had brought some in her sack. Also some celery and unroasted cashews.
Miguel had brought along some whiskey in a small canteen.
Wiley took a swig, chased it with the cigarette and then munched on the carrot so his mouth was fresh for the next drag.
Across the way in the dim light the two open vaults were darker rectangles. They took up only two thirds of the wall, Wiley noticed.
Merely curious, he got up and went over to where the wall was intact. He beamed his flashlight on it, searched close up.
There they were.
The same sort of minuscule perforations.
What were these for?
Would whatever device that was behind them respond to the photographs-and-tape routine?
Miguel was for leaving well enough alone. They had the emeralds, why risk messing with this? It might set off an alarm.
Lillian, however, was as curious as Wiley.
They played the tape and exposed the photographs to the perforations on the wall.
That section of the wall slid aside.
It was another vault.
Smaller than the second but containing the same type of white metal cabinets.
Wiley pulled open the top drawer of the nearest cabinet.
Like a layer of green-hot coals.
Emeralds.
Not rough. These were cut, faceted, polished. There must have been five hundred stones in this one drawer. They were cut in the traditional emerald fashion: an oblong table facet (face) with a crown (upper edges) of eight sections, two or three steps to each section. They were of various sizes, from about two to twelve carats.
There were more cut emeralds in the next drawer, and the next.
Wiley was awestruck.
If Van Cleef, Tiffany, Cartier, Winston and Bulgari pooled, they wouldn’t come even close.
Other cabinets contained stones not yet cut. Wiley immediately recognized the difference in this rough. It was better quality, the finest grade, practically pure kelly.
Tucked in the front corner of one top drawer was a square of fluffy cotton. With something protected in it, Wiley discovered. Two somethings. Cut emeralds of approximately twenty carats each. They were brilliant cut, that is, round in shape. Emeralds were rarely cut in this fashion. Partly because their hexagonal formation facilitated the square cut, but also because emeralds, by nature, were not hard enough, too flawed, to withstand the stress. A normal first-quality emerald of any important size would more than likely crumble in the cutter’s fingers if he tried to cleave and grind and polish so intricately.
But here was the exception.
A matched pair of exceptions.
With fifty-eight facets to catch and throw light they were obviously more scintillating, livelier, these two.
Wiley thought they were too special to drop into the duffel bag with the rest. He slipped them into his shirt pocket.
They emptied all the drawers in that unexpected vault.
It was quarter after two.
Down below on the street the fires had been put out and the trucks and firemen were gone. No crowds now. Only a few celebrating stragglers.
However, the soldiers were still there with rifles slung, standing in a well-spaced file around the base of the building. Had they been ordered to remain all night?
If so, Wiley, Lillian and Miguel were stuck up there, their getaway blocked. They sat on the floor as before, opposite the vaults. Every so often Miguel went over and looked down to the street. The situation remained unchanged. Lillian broke the silence by crunching on raw cashews. She said she was tired. She slumped against the wall and Wiley.
He thought about the vaults, wondered, why three?
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What little he knew about La Concesión de Gemas was superficial. He had no idea how it really worked for Argenti.
The first vault was for The Concession’s official inventory. As far as the government was involved, it was the only vault and the entire inventory. The government took its percentage according to The Concession’s neat accounting of the emeralds that flowed in and out of vault number one.
The second vault was for the skim. It accommodated the greater portion of the yield from all the mines. The profits from the stones kept in vault number two were shared equally by General Botero, Minister of Defense Vega, Minister of Mines Arias, Senator Robayo and, of course, Argenti. The only other person who knew this vault existed was Kellerman. His cut was two fifths of a percentage point from each of the five men. Not bad, considering the take was a hundred million a year.
The third vault was for Argenti’s skim of the skim. Those emeralds he held out on the others. He saw first and put away for himself the choice of all the stones that came in. It was Argenti’s secret, well kept. Kellerman was nosy enough to have detected vault number three but wise enough not to let on.
Three vaults.
That was why Argenti had gone through the bother and expense of such a complex system. There could be no exterior evidence of three, no dials, knobs or handles. And so, Argenti could rest easy; only he had the combination.
Wiley suspected the third vault was special. Not just because it had contained a higher grade of stones. He sensed it was somehow personally significant to Argenti. All the more reason to be glad it hadn’t been slighted.
Nearly four o’clock now.
If the soldiers didn’t leave soon they would have to change the plan. Come daylight the window-washing scaffold would surely be noticed out of place. The only alternative would be to take the scaffold to the roof before then and remain up there until the next night. It would mean at least seventeen hours of pressure, their lives hung on the chance that no one would look in on the vault room that entire day.
Already the eastern horizon was beginning to hint dawn.
Might as well get to it.
Miguel said: “They’re moving out.”
Below, three canvas-topped army trucks were at the curb. The soldiers broke rank, climbed aboard. The trucks pulled away.
Had all the soldiers gone? A sentry or two might have been left on duty. Wiley scanned the street. A couple of dogs sniffing around, otherwise it seemed deserted. Possibly sentries were posted on the other side of the building. No way of telling without going up on the roof, and not enough time for that.
They put the packs and duffel bags onto the scaffold. Wiley made a final check of the vaults and the vault room to make sure they hadn’t left anything incriminating. A couple of carrot sticks weren’t important. They wouldn’t give Kellerman much to chew on. Lillian had retrieved all her spent cartridges.
She and Miguel were waiting on the scaffold. Wiley got on. He flipped the control switch to down.
They kept their eyes on the ground.
It seemed a long trip.
There was the illusion that the ground was coming up to them.
They were ready to act as soon as they reached it.
Wiley flipped the control switch to neutral.
Lillian jumped out and stood watch with Llama ready.
Miguel tossed the parachute packs and duffel bags over the side. The parachutes weighed forty pounds each. Miguel gathered them by their harnesses and slung them over his back.
Wiley shouldered left and right the eighty pounds of emeralds in the two large duffel bags and also took up one of the smaller duffels containing twenty pounds’ worth.
Lillian reached back into the scaffold to flip the control switch to up. She lugged her equipment pack and the other smaller duffel. Heavy for her, but it saved risking a second trip.
They ran for the barrio, didn’t stop until they were well within that labyrinth. They looked back at Argenti’s building. It loomed large, appeared foreboding and impregnable as ever, but they knew it was beaten. In the day’s beginning light they could make out the scaffold on its climb, nearing the top. It reached the davits and, like some huge creature, nestled in above the edge of the roof.
The barrio was sleeping, silent except for snores, fragments of babies’ cries, a radio that had been left on. Miguel led the way through the maze of shanties and soon they came out on Calle 1-S, a minor side street.
No traffic at that hour. The only moving thing was them. The beat-up panel truck Miguel had had stolen was parked where it was supposed to be. They opened the rear doors, threw in the parachutes and duffel bags.
Still one important thing to do.
They transferred some emeralds into common brown-paper shopping bags, one bag for each, and hurried back into the barrio. They went separate ways to cover as much of the area as possible.
They scattered emeralds along the confusing narrow paths and alleys. On the run they flung emeralds into the air by the fistfuls. The precious stones fell upon the makeshift barrio roofs like hail. They tossed emeralds into doorless houses, softly pelted sleeping families.
It wasn’t merely a matter of distributing the wealth or repayment for such favors as fires and fireworks.
Lillian especially got carried away. She came upon an old man asleep outside with his Christmas bottle empty and one shoe on. She filled the empty shoe. Three tiny bare children, the earliest up, were allowed to help themselves from her bag as though dipping in for candy. She sowed emeralds like seeds along the cardboard sides of houses, tamped them into the dirt with her feet. She shoved them into surprise places, such as the pocket of an only pair of trousers, washed and put to dry over a window ledge.
The barrio was starting to stir by the time Lillian’s paper bag was empty. She had no trouble finding her way back to the panel truck.
Miguel was edgily racing the engine.
Wiley was on his third cigarette.
Lillian acted out of breath and said she’d gotten lost.
28
First thing that Christmas morning Argenti phoned Lillian in Mexico City.
He had tried several calls to her over the past ten days and been told each time by her secretary that she’d given a strict do-not-disturb instruction. Ms. Holbrook was alone, mulling over a vital decision, her secretary said in a tone that insinuated reassurance.
It wasn’t, of course, that Argenti was aching to speak to Lillian. Enough that he gave that impression.
He was certain, however, that she would come to the phone this morning, perhaps to give him her yes answer for Christmas. He had barraged her with gifts: a matinée-length necklace of ten-millimeter Burmese pearls from Van Cleef, a Russian lynx bedthrow, a thousand-dollar hamper of delicacies from Fortnum and Mason and another from Fauchon. A case of La Tache ’61 at a hundred and fifty dollars a bottle. (Her cellar could use it, judging from the comparative ordinaire he’d been served the last time he was there.) A little sentimental something: one huge cabbage rose of silk for her hair, attached to the steering wheel of a fifty-thousand-dollar Lancia Stratos.
However, this morning Argenti got her secretary again and second-hand gratitude: he was so generous, the gifts were so tasteful and persuasive and, rest assured, he would be hearing from Ms. Holbrook soon.
Argenti asked to speak to Mr. Wiley.
Who?
Was Mr. Wiley there?
Silence.
Argenti said he knew Mr. Wiley was there. No need to hide the fact.
Her secretary said she believed Wiley was somewhere around. Last seen, he was brooding out at the tennis court, smashing balls at himself on the bangboard.
Argenti clicked off. He was impatient and not quite satisfied. He placed another call to Mexico City. A Conduct Section agent confirmed that neither Lillian nor Wiley had left the house since their arrival ten days previous. Twenty-four-hour surveillance had been and was still being maintained.
Argenti thought he might fly up to Mexico C
ity tomorrow or the day after and help her make up her mind. Probably all she needed was a little romantic nudge.
He was sure of that when he found a gift from her beside his breakfast plate.
A solid-gold shoehorn from Bulgari with his first, middle and last names engraved on it. The accompanying card in her handwriting said More and more inclined, L.
Argenti heard the birds that had been singing all the while.
He had a light breakfast, would have a rich, filling lunch with Emanuel Diaz. Who was favored to succeed Robayo as Senator from the district of Boyacá. Robayo was stepping aside because of ill health. The Boyacá district was where the most important mines were located. A scrupulous Senator could be troublesome. Better it should be someone more typical, like Diaz: hungry and corruptible. The election was less than a month away. Argenti was quite certain he had Diaz in his pocket. Today he’d show Diaz what would be put into his.
The lunch was set for two o’clock in Argenti’s office at The Concession.
Argenti arrived there an hour early.
General Botero dropped by. He kidded Argenti about their last polo match. Argenti had missed an easy beneath-the-neck shot, but his pony had kicked the ball in for the winning goal. The General said he believed Argenti had trained the pony to do it. Argenti countered by making a gift of the pony to the General, because, he said, the General hadn’t scored a goal in the last nine chukkers and the pony might save him from further disgrace. The General reminded Argenti they had a match at four and left him in good humor.
Argenti called down to Conduct Section, the control room. The man on duty answered on the first ring. At Argenti’s request he bypassed the timer, pushed a button on the console to electronically withdraw the steel plate that blocked the elevator shaft. He told Argenti the way was now clear.
Argenti went up.
When he stepped out of the small elevator he first noticed the broken glass on the floor. His thought was that a flaw in the glass had caused it. He would raise hell with the …
Then he saw the vaults open. All three.
He rushed into the third vault, yanked open a drawer, and another drawer, and another. He ran from vault to vault, frantically pulling out drawers.
Impossible.
Green Ice Page 31
