He clenched his eyes because they had to be lying to him.
But every drawer had been stolen clean. Not even a single stone had been dropped on the floor.
Argenti felt as though his stomach and bowels were exchanging places. He was going to either throw up or shit. Voltage was crackling back and forth between his frontal lobes.
Taking a wider stance to remain upright, he bellowed for Kellerman.
29
Kellerman got the blame.
Argenti hung it on him and Conduct Section.
Incompetent, stupid and blind, overconfident about minding the store. Argenti even suggested Conduct Section might have pulled off the robbery, but he did not go so far as to imply that Kellerman was directly involved. He had to depend on Kellerman’s expertise and cunning, now more than ever.
No need to impress Kellerman with what a catastrophe this was. The Concession could not absorb such a huge loss. Most of those emeralds in inventory had already been scheduled for delivery within the next eight weeks. Even if all the mines worked triple shift round the clock for the next six months, it was doubtful the yield would be sufficient to cover those outstanding orders.
Of course, Argenti could stall the clients. They would have no recourse but to wait, inasmuch as The Concession had its monopoly. However, they would be resentful and suspicious. The Concession had already driven its per-carat price to the limit. Clients would believe the squeeze was being put on them again. It would strain relations. But The Concession could endure it.
More critical were the payoffs that were due all the way down the line. Not only those to General Botero, Ministers Vega and Arias and Senator Robayo but the lesser ones to key people on other levels, custom officials and the like. And especially the esmeralderos with their have-or-have-not mentalities. There would be no explaining or putting them off. It would take The Concession months to recover, to regain the confidence of the esmeralderos, if ever. Many of them were barely cooperative as it was, on the verge of rampage. This could snap the tie. The esmeralderos alone were capable of turning The Concession’s operation into chaos—in a week.
Altogether those payoffs amounted to a formidable sum. To maintain them for six months would put The Concession so deep in the red it was likely to go under.
What if the three hundred thousand carats that had been stolen were to find their way onto the market? The price per carat would dive. Clients, with little love for and no loyalty to The Concession, would jump at the opportunity to buy short. The Arabs for sure. The Middle East was one of the strongest markets for colored stones. Those Saudi and Kuwaitin oil princes could buy the lot at a bargain price and use them as party favors, inducements for arms deals, intimate and otherwise. No matter which way it went, three hundred thousand carats flooding the market would ruin it for a long time to come. On the other hand, if the thieves dribbled them out over a year or so, that might be even more harmful, certainly more painful.
The bottom line was that as a result of the robbery, The Concession, the house of sticks built on a base of corruption, had no better than a fifty-fifty chance for survival.
Kellerman assured Argenti that recovery of the inventory was imminent. Argenti believed Kellerman. Because Kellerman stood to lose over two million himself, his percentage on the emeralds that had been in the second vault. It was impossible now to keep the existence of the third vault from Kellerman. There would be no way of explaining the hundred million surplus when the emeralds were recovered. Everything would have to be put back in the same order as before the robbery. Kellerman’s cooperation would be necessary.
Kellerman remained death-mask passive when told of the third vault.
Argenti didn’t have to explain what purpose it served. He offered Kellerman one percent—one million—of vault number three if and when. As extra incentive, was the way Argenti put it.
Kellerman held up two fingers and, that quickly, doubled his take.
First thing, Kellerman took care of some of Argenti’s dirty work. He met with General Botero, Minister Vega, Minister Arias and Senator Robayo. They were stunned at the bad news. And disgruntled. They were not used to losses.
It was agreed in that meeting the local police would not be called in, nor would the press. The robbery was to be kept as confidential as possible, and, by no means, was the true extent of the loss to be revealed. Conduct Section with its international network of informants, agents and people of various specialties on the shady side was best geared to handle the problem. The confidential help of the army and army intelligence, F-2, would be appreciated, naturally.
General Botero pledged it.
Likewise any assistance from the D.A.S., the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad.
Minister of Defense Arias would see to that.
It was decided a reward would be set, word would be leaked out and around. For information leading to apprehension of the thieves (find them, find the emeralds), the offer would be $250,000. Certainly adequate in the likeliest circles, where men often valued others’ lives at $249,000 less—if that much. Still, the extent of the robbery would not be revealed. Only that there had been a robbery of sorts and that an object lesson was due those who had defied The Concession.
Botero, Vega, Arias and Robayo left the meeting still downcast, grumbling, but also indignant now and eager to do their part to bring about justice. Getting them on that side of the crisis was the true purpose of the meeting. A holding action. Maybe it would hold long enough.
Kellerman set about to determine the methods of the robbery. He realized, of course, that the barrio fires and the ensuing disorder had not been coincidental. He reviewed the entries in the log books, interrogated the men who had been on duty. They related exactly what they had witnessed on the radar screen and the decibel indicator of the listening alarm. It was more or less understood that they shouldn’t mention having called Kellerman those times when the listening alarm was set off, and, in turn, he wouldn’t admonish them.
Kellerman went to the roof.
There were tracks in the gritty dust. Flat-soled shoes. From the different sizes he knew three persons had taken part. One set of tracks was considerably smaller than the others. Those of a boy or, possibly, a woman.
Other impressions indicated something expansive, like a fabric, had lain upon the roof, swept across the roof in places. From those he deduced how the thieves had gotten up there—or down, to be more exact.
It was a lead. At least a sniff. They had to be either very experienced amateurs or former paratroopers.
The window-washing apparatus. Its motor was still on. He rode the scaffold down and stopped at the glassless window of the vault room. He guessed a low-gauge shotgun had been used to blow the pane out.
Conduct Section specialists had already dusted for fingerprints throughout the vault room and vaults one and two. The only prints that came up were Argenti’s. Vault number three was closed. Argenti had had the presence of mind to close it right after the initial shock.
Kellerman examined the pinpoint openings in the wall where Argenti had kept his private skim. He’d noticed them before, but they were worth two million now. The robbery could be his good fortune.
He found no clues in the vaults or the vault room, no signs of the vaults being forced. How the thieves had managed the latter, Kellerman couldn’t even speculate. That was one of the few things Argenti had been able to keep from him—the combination.
He rode the elevator down to Argenti’s floor, took the other one down to his own office on thirty-three. He phoned Argenti, who sounded surprisingly calm. To keep Argenti out of the way, Kellerman said he already had a significant lead and he promised to have much more within forty-eight hours. Insinuated by that time the emeralds would be recovered and everything would be business as usual. Argenti pressed for details, but Kellerman got away with leaving it vague.
He set his organization in full motion. Personally placed calls to the key positions in his network. When he was through, no one could make a
move with those emeralds anywhere in the world without his knowing it inside of ten minutes.
This was going to be too easy, he thought.
By nine o’clock the following day, Kellerman had ten arrests. Six of those arrested were sidewalk dealers along Calle 14 who had three times more stones than normal in their possession. The others arrested were poor, frightened hombres looking to sell a few stones of fine quality for whatever they could get. After brief, intense questioning, it was obvious they knew about as much about where the emeralds had come from as they did their value.
By noon a hundred and fifty people had been picked up and brought in. By late afternoon over three hundred.
Some were sidewalk dealers.
The rest had one puzzling thing in common. They were campesinos who lived in the barrio.
The interrogation of Geraldo Morales was typical.
“How old are you?”
“They say seventy-one.”
“Where did you get these emeralds?”
“I did not steal them.”
“Where did you get them, old man?”
“I found them.”
“Where?”
“I was sleeping.”
“You found them in your sleep?”
“No. I found them in my shoe.”
“How do you think they got there?”
“I ask myself the same question.”
“Who put them there?”
“I believe God.”
That first day nearly ten thousand carats were recovered. Certainly they were emeralds from the robbery, but it was frustrating to have so many suspects who were so obviously unqualified. Not for a minute did Kellerman believe any of those people capable of engineering such an intricate theft, and he doubted they knew any more than they were telling. He didn’t even bother to hold them.
Reflecting on that first day’s efforts, Kellerman came to the conclusion that the thieves had salted the market, somehow put a sizeable amount of stones into circulation as a distraction, to cover up their own activity. It was damn clever. He was sure now he was dealing with hard, extremely experienced professionals.
The following day, from the earliest hour, Calle 14 was a scurry of buying and selling. The sidewalk dealers were so numerous and eager to get in on the good thing they overran the sidewalks and the street. It got so that the section between Carrera 5 and Carrera 7 had to be blocked off by the traffic police. The price per carat for all classifications of emeralds, from ordinary to fine, had dropped to half and would probably go lower. Ten thousand carats changed hands between ten o’clock and noon.
By day’s end five hundred arrests had been made. Kellerman had decided not to bother with the sidewalk dealers. Otherwise trading would go underground and the chance of turning up a lead would be that much hindered.
Conduct Section didn’t let up on their interrogations. It was a laborious task, trying to get anything out of los pobres, the poor. There was still that common factor. The barrio.
At quarter to four one of the interrogators was presented with an incongruity.
“Where did you get these emeralds?”
“I found them.”
“Where?”
“In the barrio.”
To that point nothing.
“How long have you been in Colombia?”
“Three weeks.”
“Your passport, please.”
The black face in the photograph matched the black face across the desk.
“Did you serve in the military in Cuba?”
“Is that a pertinent question?”
“It is a question.”
“I served in the military.”
“Perhaps you are still in the military?”
“Perhaps.” The Cuban bristled and then tried to smile his way out of it.
“Have you ever used a parachute?”
“No.”
“You realize, of course, we know how it was done. Before long we will have those involved.”
The interrogator read the Cuban’s eyes carefully.
“The first we bring in will be the lucky one,” the interrogator said.
“Why lucky?”
“He will be able to give testimony in exchange for exoneration. And then there is also the reward, a quarter of a million.”
“I am not interested in money.”
The interrogator called Kellerman.
The Cuban was taken to a different room.
Relief showed on Kellerman’s face the moment he saw the Cuban. He would take over the questioning, do something to earn his keep.
It was as though Kellerman had an anatomical chart in his head. The nervous system. He seemed to know precisely where the ganglions crowded. The zones for pleasure, of course, corresponded with the zones for pain. Usually he took more time, made use of the victim’s anticipation, fear that eventually he would get to the genitals. Good painmaking was much like good lovemaking in that respect.
The Cuban did not break easily. An average man would have lasted an hour at most. The Cuban broke at half past seven that night, after nearly three hours.
But then he told it all.
Kellerman did not let on that he knew any of those the Cuban named and described. When he learned Wiley and Lillian were involved, he was momentarily surprised. That told him even more than what he was getting from the Cuban. Kellerman was not interested in motives, although he wondered how Argenti would react when he learned he’d been so neatly used. It was the worst sort of insult.
The Cuban revealed the address of the Kennedy City house where the others, and the emeralds, had been since the robbery.
He asked for a drink of water and also wanted to know about the reward.
Kellerman told one of his men to see that the Cuban got his reward. In Barbosa.
Twenty minutes later twelve Conduct Section agents and twenty-five army troops were in Kennedy City. Carrera 74 and the other streets in the vicinity of the house were blocked off by the troops. The agents, armed with automatic rifles, took up surrounding positions.
There were lights on; however, the windows of the house had been sprayed with black paint, so there was no way to see in. There was the smell of something cooking. Whoever was inside could not possibly escape.
The agents moved in, cautiously.
On signal they broke simultaneously through the front and back doors and every window.
They found three parachutes and some other equipment, several photographs of Argenti. And a huge pot of zuki beans and rice close to scorching on the stove.
30
At that moment Wiley and Lillian were in the fifth car from the engine on a train. Headed north for Cartagena, the old Colombian port on the Caribbean.
They were in second class. In first or third they would have been too obvious. Also, they had taken seats apart from one another. From where Wiley sat he could see only the back top of Lillian’s head. She was reading a paperback edition of Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau. Every so often, in a natural, passive manner, she glanced around and caught on Wiley’s eyes, just the briefest sort of snags, but he believed it said a lot. Wiley wondered on what page she would desert Rousseau. He bet himself the forty-some thousand dollars he had in his socks that it would be within ten, one way or the other, from page 178. It was one of those things about her that he would have to learn to live with.
At least, he thought, Bogotá was behind them. They were on the way, their way, at last, he felt. He wouldn’t worry that they hadn’t settled on an eventual destination. There hadn’t been time to discuss that. It was just good to be going with her.
The day before yesterday, after the robbery, they had gone to the Kennedy City house. A sheet was spread on the floor and the emeralds were dumped on it.
A pile about two feet high.
They were all tired but too wound up to sleep. Besides it was impossible to be indifferent to $300 million dollars. The Cubans, although not in as much of a state of euphoria, joined in the high of
it. One of them plopped himself down right on the precious heap and beamed as he sank into it. Miguel put a comradely arm around Wiley’s shoulder and they exchanged congratulations. Lillian sat by the edge and chose some emeralds, about twenty, that she intended to have made into marbles. She might as well have been picking through pebbles on a beach. Wiley kneeled beside the pile and cupped up a handful, let them drop through his fingers. He imagined a raving Argenti, furious to the foaming point, literally epileptic, throwing a fit, with Kellerman grabbing his tongue to prevent him from choking to death. Let go, Kellerman.
Finally, the flush of success subsided enough for Wiley and Lillian to catch up on their sleep.
The next day Miguel let them in on what he had planned, what the money from the sale of the emeralds would make possible.
The incident he had frequently mentioned.
It involved Panama.
The entire territory of Panama had once belonged to Colombia.
That fact, Wiley recalled, had been an underplayed sidelight in the news during the recent controversial treaty negotiations between the United States and Panama.
Miguel elaborated, knew his side of the story by heart: Through a deal with the Colombian government, a French company began digging a canal in Panama in 1881. The company failed, went bankrupt. The United States snatched up the French equipment and other assets at a good price and made its own treaty for a canal with Colombia. Before the ink on that treaty was barely dry, the United States started stirring up a revolution among the Panamanians. It gave encouragement, guns and money. Colombia sent troops to Panama. The United States countered with sympathy, a cruiser and a force of marines. Colombia had to back off. No contest.
Thus, the United States had a due bill from the new Republic of Panama.
Right away it got what it was after: the Canal Zone, a ten-mile-wide strip from Atlantic to Pacific that cut Panama in two. Ten million cash and a quarter million a year went to Panama. The United States got control of the Canal Zone forever. Not for just a hundred or even five hundred years but in perpetuity, as the agreement said. Colombia got a twenty-five-million token payment and a spit in the eye for its loss. The Colombian government didn’t formally recognize Panama or the deal till twenty years later, which was sort of like being indignant after being sodomized. Anyway, the left side of Colombian politics never swallowed it, and it was still the surest way to whip up anti-American enthusiasm.
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