The Pursuit

by Janet Evanovich

“Were you getting anywhere with him?”

  “No, but now that you’re here, it completely undercuts my authority in the interrogation. He’ll think that he’s the one in charge now. It won’t be easy getting back the upper hand.”

  Kate put a paper clip on the papers. “If you want him to give you information, you’re going to have to play his game.”

  Kate walked out of the observation room and into the hallway, where a uniformed guard stood outside the interrogation room door. Janssen nodded her approval at the officer, and he opened the door for Kate.

  She strode into the interrogation room, sat down at the table, slipped the paper clip off the papers, and made a show of examining them. Everything Kate and Nick were about to say and do was for Janssen’s benefit. But Kate also had a message to convey to Nick and a delivery to make.

  “You’re looking good,” Kate said.

  “Orange is my color.”

  “I’m referring to the handcuffs,” Kate said. “You were born to wear them.”

  “They’re a bit snug.”

  She looked up from her papers. “You’re facing a long prison stretch, and once you get out there are a dozen countries lined up to lock you away again.”

  “I’ve always been a popular guy.”

  “It seems you weren’t that popular with the Road Runners. They double-crossed you and got away with hundreds of millions in diamonds. That’s got to hurt.”

  “I pulled off the biggest heist in Belgian history,” Nick said. “Making history is not a bad way to end a career.”

  “You can thank your so-called friends for your grand finale. Tell me where they are and what they’re doing with the diamonds. Maybe you can do a little less time. Where do we find Dragan Kovic?”

  “Haven’t you heard about honor among thieves?”

  “They betrayed you.”

  Nick shrugged. “Not all thieves have honor.”

  Kate leaned forward. “I’m offering you your only chance for vengeance against the people who put you here.”

  “You put me here. Not talking is how I get my revenge.” Nick leaned forward too. “Your screwups led to the success of the biggest diamond heist in Belgian history. You’ll probably lose your badge.”

  Kate gathered up her papers, leaned back in her seat, and shook her head in disappointment.

  “My job is done anyway. I vowed that I’d never let you get away, and I meant it.” She got up and went to the door, pausing for a moment to take one more look at him before leaving. “Remember that on Monday morning when you’re on your way to prison.”

  She walked out, satisfied that she’d delivered her message to Nick and more. Now Nick knew that she’d be making her move on Monday morning and, while they were nearly nose to nose over the table, he’d taken the paper clip she’d brought for him.

  Janssen met Kate in the hall. “That was a waste of time.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. I got him talking.”

  “But he didn’t say anything,” Janssen said.

  “The man loves to hear his own voice. He’ll give me something next time, and then something more after that, just to keep the conversation going. Before it’s over, he’ll give up the gang.”

  “There won’t be another meeting.” Janssen held out a plane ticket. “You’re on the eleven A.M. flight Monday to Heathrow with a connecting flight to Los Angeles.”

  Kate didn’t take the ticket. “I’m the only one he’ll talk to and the only one with a shot at breaking him.”

  “While you are somewhere over the Atlantic, there will be a press conference here announcing the arrest by Belgian police of international fugitive Nicolas Fox, the mastermind behind the vault robbery. We’ll thank the FBI for providing crucial resources, and that will be the end of U.S. involvement in our ongoing investigation and manhunt.”

  Plitt had done his job with surprising speed, Kate thought. Maybe he deserved a Nobel Prize after all. She took the ticket from Janssen.

  “This is a mistake.”

  “Bon voyage, Agent O’Hare,” Janssen said. “A police officer will be waiting at your hotel at nine A.M. to escort you to the airport.”

  With those words, Amelie Janssen officially set the timer ticking on Nicolas Fox’s escape.

  At 6:45 A.M. on Monday, Kate left her hotel for her morning run in a tank top, jogging shorts, and a running belt full of explosives.

  She jogged a block west into Stadspark and quickly veered off the paved trails into a thicket of bushes where her father had stashed a gym bag that contained a loose black sweat suit, a black balaclava, and gloves. She pulled the clothes on over her own. The size and dark color of the sweats had been chosen to obscure her figure and allow her to pass for a man. Kate put the balaclava on her head, rolled up the face mask to form a rim across her brow, then dashed back out onto the path and out of the park.

  Kate jogged up Bourlastraat and slowed to a walk as she approached Leopoldplaats, where four streets intersected around a statue of King Leopold on horseback. There was a lattice of electric cables overhead that powered the trams that crisscrossed the plaza every few minutes. She stopped and pressed her back against the wall of the 150-year-old three-story stone building that occupied the corner. The building had a tower with a dome shaped like a wizard’s hat and topped with a spire that looked to her like a boa constrictor that had swallowed a basketball. It was why Kate had picked that spot to wait. Nobody glancing in her direction would notice her with all of that Gothic gaudiness screaming for attention.

  She surveyed the scene. Most of the cafés and shops that ringed the plaza hadn’t yet opened. The vehicle traffic was light in all directions, and only a few people were on the streets. On the south side of the plaza, a huge garbage truck idled at the corner of a side street, facing the plaza and alongside a parking area for bikes, scooters, and motorcycles. An especially observant passerby might have noticed that two of the motorcycles, parked side-by-side, had keys in their ignitions.

  The trap was set. Now all they needed was the mouse.

  —

  At that moment, a handcuffed and ankle-chained Nicolas Fox was led out of the back door of the police station by two uniformed police officers and guided into the back of a paddy wagon. Nick climbed up into the van and sat on one of the two metal benches. The only window was the mesh-covered porthole into the front crew cab. One of the officers secured Nick with a seatbelt and shut the thick rear door, locking it from the outside.

  The two officers climbed into the front, which had special windows designed to withstand the impact of rocks and other hard objects typically thrown at cops in riot situations. But they weren’t heading into a riot. This was just a routine prisoner transport, one of many they did each day, and they had no reason for concern. So after they drove off, neither one of the officers glanced over their shoulders into the porthole to see what Nick was up to. If they had, they might have seen him spit a paper clip into his hands.

  Nick figured the trip to the new Palace of Justice near the banks of the Schelde River would take twenty minutes at most. They would travel east on a street that changed names four times, then southwest on a wide tree-lined boulevard that changed its name five times and then followed the path of the walls that once ringed the ancient city. The Palace of Justice’s distinctive roofline, evoking the masts and sails of the ships that once traveled the river, made it look like the police were delivering prisoners for a cruise instead of a jail sentence. But Nick knew the van wouldn’t be reaching its destination this morning and, being an experienced criminal, he had a pretty good idea where Kate would be making her move.

  He easily unlocked his handcuffs and chains with the paper clip and braced himself for action as the van rolled into Leopoldplaats.

  —

  Kate pulled the balaclava’s mask down over her face as the paddy wagon entered the plaza from the west. The garbage truck charged out of the northbound street like a freight train, T-boned the paddy wagon on the passenger side, and bulldozed it
into the wide stone base of the King Leopold statue.

  The two dazed but uninjured police officers were trapped in the crew cab. The driver’s side door was pinned against the statue while the passenger side was smashed against the huge grill of the garbage truck, which was driven by Jake, his face hidden behind a balaclava.

  Kate ran to the back of the paddy wagon and took the explosive out of her belt. The bomb looked like a cellphone and spark plugs wrapped in white Silly Putty. She hammered the door with her fist, then stuck the bomb to the door, right on top of the locking mechanism.

  “Cover your ears and hit the floor,” she said in her most manly impersonation. “And pray we didn’t use too much C4.”

  Nick immediately flattened himself facedown between the benches and pressed his hands against his ears. He hoped any shrapnel from the door would pass over his head.

  The two officers heard the warning too, and kicked at the windshield with their feet, but it was futile. The glass was designed to withstand much worse abuse. Jake ducked down under the dashboard of his truck.

  Kate ran back the way she came, and as she did, she hit a key on the cellphone in her pocket that auto-dialed the phone that was wrapped in the C4. The bomb exploded like a thunderclap, the sound echoing off the buildings in the plaza.

  —

  Nick sat up, his ears ringing, and saw daylight through the jagged, smoking hole in the steel door where the locking mechanism had been. He pushed the door open and jumped into the street. He saw a figure in black running away, assumed it was Kate, and was about to follow her when someone grabbed his arm and he heard a familiar voice.

  “Your ride is this way,” Jake said, gesturing to the two motorcycles parked across the street.

  “Thanks for coming,” Nick said.

  “My pleasure. Nothing beats a jailbreak for fun and wholesome father-daughter bonding.” Jake glanced back at the two furious officers. One of them was already on the radio, calling for backup. “We’ve got to go.”

  They dashed across the street and jumped onto the motorcycles. Jake took off first across the plaza and Nick followed his lead just as a tram passed behind them, blocking the officers from seeing which way they went.

  Nick looked for Kate as they sped away, but she was gone.

  —

  Kate didn’t have a lot of time. The police were coming to the hotel in less than an hour to escort her to the airport. She ran back to the park and into some bushes, removed her black clothes, covered them with dirt and leaves, and dashed out onto the trail again in her original jogging attire.

  She returned to the hotel at 8:15 covered in sweat. She smiled politely at the man at the front desk as she caught her breath at the elevator.

  —

  Jake led Nick into an underground garage a few blocks away from Leopoldplaats. They rode their motorcycles down two levels to a stolen Renault that Jake had parked there. There was a set of clothes for Nick folded neatly on the backseat. He quickly changed out of his orange jumpsuit into a polo shirt, jeans, and running shoes. Jake handed him the car keys, five hundred euros, a disposable phone, and a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses.

  “Is there anything else you need?” Jake asked, pulling off his balaclava.

  “This is more than enough. In fact, it’s too much.” Nick tossed the car keys back to Jake. “I can find my own way out of the city.”

  “Are you sure?” Jake said.

  “Evading capture isn’t much of a challenge now that Europe has open borders,” Nick said. “The only way a fugitive can get caught these days is if he gives himself up.”

  Nick shook Jake’s hand, slipped the Ray-Bans onto his face, and sauntered casually to the stairwell.

  —

  Kate showered, changed into a T-shirt and jeans, grabbed her go bag, and got down to the lobby promptly at nine. No airport escort in sight. She heard sirens and honking horns coming from the street and the rumble of helicopters flying low overhead. Nick’s explosive escape and the police response had created a traffic nightmare throughout the city.

  She found a couch that had a view of the door and the street beyond, picked up a day-old issue of USA Today from the coffee table, and flipped through it while she waited patiently for her escort to arrive.

  Her iPhone rang at 10 A.M.

  “Hey, Katie Bug,” Cosmo said. “Where are you? I bet you’re out of country, right? That’s so cool. You’re like James Bond only you’re a girl. Did you see him in Spectre? Man, I loved when he blew up that building in the beginning. And then did you see the part where he kicked the guy out of the helicopter? I want to kick a guy out of a helicopter someday. That would be so cool, right? Did you ever kick someone out of a helicopter?”

  “I’m kind of busy right now, Cosmo.”

  “I know. I know. I hate to bother you, but Jessup needs your form HB7757Q.”

  “I thought you needed SQ009?”

  “That one too. HB7757Q is for hotel rooms exceeding your allowed per diem. You probably don’t have anything to put on that one, right? I mean, how much could you spend on a room? I stayed at a Hampton Inn once and I got free breakfast. It was awesome. I could fill these out for you if you want. You could just give me the info and I could fill out the forms. I could go to wherever you are or you could come here. If it’s after hours you could come to my house. I know how to make Swedish meatballs in a toaster oven and I have some apricot schnapps.”

  “Yeah, that sounds good, but I don’t think I can do any of that right now.”

  “Or we could just have mixed nuts. I get them in bulk at Costco.”

  Kate disconnected. She felt very righteous because she hadn’t threatened to shoot him.

  A white Opel Astra pulled up in front of the hotel, and Amelie Janssen emerged. The chief inspector had a grim expression on her face and walked into the lobby like someone facing a triple root canal followed by a colonoscopy. Kate stood up, grabbed her bag, and met Janssen at the door.

  “This is a surprise,” Kate said. “I was expecting a rookie cop and a ride to the airport in the backseat of a filthy patrol car.”

  “That was the plan,” Janssen said, “but there was an incident this morning and I wanted you to hear about it from me personally.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  Janssen put her hands on her hips, instinctively staking her position and bracing herself for the unpleasant experience to come. “Fox escaped.”

  Kate swore, turned her back to Janssen, and took a few steps away, putting some distance between her and the chief inspector while presumably getting a grip on her anger. The truth was that Kate didn’t have much faith in her acting skills and was afraid her performance would ring false eye to eye. The truth was, she was struggling not to smile. Kate took a deep breath and faced Janssen again. Now if Kate wasn’t showing her rage, Janssen would chalk it up to admirable self-control.

  “How did it happen?” Kate asked, her words clipped, her voice flat.

  “The prisoner transport vehicle carrying Fox to court was rammed by a garbage truck. Two assailants blasted open the transport with explosives. Fox and the assailants escaped on motorcycles. Nobody was hurt, and the whole thing was over in two minutes. It was a professional job, crude in its simplicity, but executed with precision.”

  “Another Road Runner smash-and-grab, only this time they took Fox instead of diamonds,” Kate said, stepping up to Janssen again. “It’s right out of their playbook.”

  “So it is, and that means they’ve already split up and will be out of the country within a few hours, if they aren’t already. But we’ll launch an intense manhunt for Fox anyway and notify international authorities to be on high alert.”

  “That explains why Fox wouldn’t give me anything on the Road Runners,” Kate said. “It wasn’t about honor. He knew they’d be coming back for him.”

  The most wanted man in Belgium wasn’t thinking about who might be pursuing him. He was enjoying a croissant, a selection of fresh fruit, a yogurt, and a hot cup
of coffee in his leather seat in the first-class compartment of the Thalys high-speed train to Paris. He’d arrive at Gare du Nord station in forty minutes. This, Nicolas Fox thought, was the civilized way to break out of jail.

  He wasn’t worried about being spotted by any police officers that might be waiting to greet the train. The authorities were frantically searching for a fugitive, and he didn’t look like one. A person’s appearance, Nick had learned, was as much about attitude as facial features and build. The Ray-Bans and the relaxed, unhurried gait of a man preoccupied by the email on his phone were all he’d need to become essentially invisible. He would blend into the crowd on the train platform and let the stream of humanity carry him out into the city.

  Nick sipped his coffee, settled back in his seat, and fantasized about what his reunion with Kate O’Hare would be like. He wouldn’t mind if they were both naked.

  —

  Kate flew to Heathrow Airport in London but intentionally missed her connecting flight to Los Angeles. She wasn’t going to leave Europe until Dragan Kovic was out of business, and she and Nick had recovered the smallpox.

  She hadn’t heard from Nick yet, but before she’d left Antwerp, she received a text from her father in Amsterdam. He was boarding a flight to Los Angeles. His successful escape gave Kate some peace of mind and some assurance that Nick had also got out of Belgium safely.

  Kate’s idea of airport shopping was Sunglass Hut and See’s Candy, so she was surprised to discover Caviar House & Prunier as she walked through the terminal. She was wondering how many people cracked open a $400 tin of fish eggs for an in-flight snack, when her cellphone vibrated, announcing the receipt of a text message. It was a street address in Bois-le-Roi, France, from “Dr. Richard Kimble,” the hero of the classic TV series The Fugitive. Nick was safe and waiting for her.

  She looked up the address on Google Maps and booked the first available flight to Paris. Ninety minutes later, she arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, where she rented a compact Citroën with a stick shift and drove the seventy-five kilometers south to Bois-le-Roi.