The Faberge Heist

by David Leadbeater

  It was an extra redundancy Jax had built in. They didn’t need it, but it helped. Jax was good with his diversions.

  Kushner signaled Steele. He leapt up onto a low ledge. Looking down, there was nothing but five hundred feet of empty air. He would go first. They’d fixed a rope to a metal stanchion that was part of a barrier running around the roof. Kushner now strapped a separate roped harness around his body and through his legs. The harness would take most of his weight and allow him better movement.

  Kushner picked up the rope, then turned his back to the drop and jumped off, abseiling down five feet before planting the soles of his shoes against the brick wall. Kushner had initially thought this method was old school and challenged Jax, pointing out the state-of-the-art Red Diamond descender, but Jax had argued that the descender wasn’t as precise when it came to sending your body where it needed to be. The descender swung you, it made you dizzy. Abseiling did none of those things because you were in total control.

  Kushner pushed off again, falling another five feet. The top of the building was in darkness, so there was no unnecessary risk at the moment. Kushner wore all black. He abseiled again, and positioned himself exactly where he wanted to be.

  Jax had been right. This was the best way down. Maybe their respected leader wasn’t losing it after all.

  Maybe Cara was?

  Kushner shook it away and took ten seconds to regain focus. So far, all was well. His feet were poised above the lip of a penthouse window, the one in deepest darkness due to several neighboring lights being out of order.

  Courtesy of Faye and a modern casino’s reliance on advanced technology.

  Kushner descended another two feet, bringing his hands and the gripper gloves in reach of the window. It wouldn’t be natural not to experience a tingle of fear as he secured the rope on the harness to keep him at the right height, placed his gloved hands on the glass and let go. Kushner held his breath. The gloves held him suspended almost five hundred feet above the ground, clinging to a pane of glass.

  Now the breeze gusted, the wind whipping past his body, tugging at the rucksack he carried over his shoulders. Kushner ignored it, secured by the harness, made sure his feet were in the correct position, and shuffled his body around so that his head was facing downward. He climbed down the pane of glass, toward the ground, a handhold at a time.

  Once in place, he glanced over his shoulder. Steele was watching over the top of the building. It would be his turn soon.

  Kushner looked through the window an inch from his nose. Inside it was mostly dark, the only light thrown by a few dim security lights. The ceremony had gone well earlier today. Mr. Singh had shown off his fabulous collection of eggs and unveiled the four lost pieces to incredible applause and undeniable rapture. Those who knew their Fabergé eggs were in tears.

  Kushner saw only a room filled with a happy future. Proceeds from the eggs would fund his lavish lifestyle for a decade.

  Still, holding to the pane with his right hand, Kushner unfastened a small pocket in his black suit and pulled out the only thing inside – the glass cutting kit he’d created. It was a diamond-pointed scorer, a pair of heavy-duty running pliers, and several industrial strength suckers. Kushner knew that the Azure’s all-black outer appearance had been achieved by coating the second surface windows with an optically thin layer of obsidian paint. Each glass layer was one inch thick. Gaining entry would require patience and skill. But Kushner was fine with that. He didn’t work any other way.

  Working efficiently, he cut through three layers of glass and then attached them to the uncut area of the outer window with the special suckers. With the displaced glass to his right, he now had clear entry to the Fabergé room.

  Kushner signaled Steele with the infra-red flashlight. Steele would send that signal to Jax who would then notify Faye, who was seated patiently behind her top-notch bank of computers, waiting to take down the internal security network.

  Kushner gripped the outer pane with the gloves. Hanging in the air was nothing new to him. He’d done it for the team several times before, trained both in Monument Valley and upon European buildings for this job. Up here, he’d first imagined he’d feel isolated, out of the real world. But the myriad noises that poured across his senses, rising from the busy streets below, made him feel as if he was among them.

  In his head, he counted down the seconds.

  Faye had required two to five minutes for this crucial part of the job. She’d been inside the hotel’s security for a week now, sniffing out every option, but still needed time to make sure everything was perfect, from the placement and movement of guards to the ambient temperature inside the room. Faye would be spoofing feeds, looping CCTV cameras, messing with security measures such as infra-red lasers and pressure pads. She’d even be incapacitating defenses attached to the pedestals that held the eggs, taking each one separately until she had a whole.

  Kushner counted past three minutes.

  Finally, the signal was returned. This was Steele’s cue to start down.

  Kushner hung and watched him for the first few minutes, not fully confident until Steele had completed the trickiest part of the descent, and then balanced his shoes on the bottom part of the hole he’d cut in the glass.

  Next, he jumped into the room, landing softly on the other side of the window, crouching low in the shadows. This area was a room that the hotel had turned into an atrium, the antechamber that led to the proper Fabergé room beyond. Kushner could see it far easier now. It lay ahead, through an open door. It too, was in semi-darkness.

  Steele appeared, puffing a little, sweating profusely. Kushner raised a finger to his lips. Steele gave him the middle finger. Kushner then nodded at the window and Steele fixed a thin piece of transparent plastic over the hole so that, for the short time they needed, it wouldn’t be noticed.

  “Ready?” Kushner whispered.

  Steele nodded.

  Together, they stole into the Fabergé room.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Kushner ignored the magnificent treasures, preferring to see them as mere objects. There were five eggs each to collect, and then two lost eggs each. That would be enough. Kushner knew, by sight, the ones Jax and Cara wanted. He hurried through the dim room, placing a reflective strip on every pedestal that bore an egg they needed. That would help Steele. Then, they got down to work.

  Kushner lifted the first egg, a small, exquisite piece of art called the Scandinavian, crafted in 1899. He slipped it into a specially made, unbreakable box and then into his backpack. Next was Nobel Ice, from 1914, and then three more, each one fitting perfectly into the small, foam-lined containers Cara had gotten made for them.

  Once they had ten eggs, it was on to the special items.

  Kushner listened to the room, to the dark. It was quiet up here, as it should be in the absolute dead of night. They were calling this the Fabergé Suite now. Mr. Singh was housed next door. Still, a patrol was expected, and Kushner knew both he and Steele had to be quick.

  “Twenty minutes,” he hissed, “and counting.”

  Residing on a stage at the far end of the room, behind a curtain, were the four lost eggs, resplendent on their marble pedestals and frilly cushions, surrounded by a plush leather border studded with diamonds. Kushner reached out for the first egg but then heard a cough.

  It wasn’t Steele.

  Both men crouched and then turned. There was a figure by the door, wearing a cap which identified him as a guard. He shouldn’t be there. It wasn’t time. But he was, and he was there alone.

  Some asshole taking selfies, Kushner thought. It happened more than you would think, even among the world’s most respected security firms.

  Kushner waited. Steele wasn’t so shy. He crept through the display stands a step at a time, a shadow among shadows. For now, the guard was watching his own back, probably making sure he was alone.

  Kushner bit his lip and clenched his fists. Steele had already made up his mind what was going to happe
n. Of course, when the guard entered the room properly, he would notice half the eggs were missing. Maybe Steele was justified.

  The guard turned. Steele rose up with a palm strike, smashing the man under the jaw and then catching the back of his head before it connected with anything solid. The same hand that had impacted the guard’s jaw then covered his mouth and nose, cutting off his air. Steele pressed hard. Kushner rose and walked over to them.

  “No noise. Be quick.”

  He watched as Steele continued to press hard, holding the guard in place. He checked the outer room. All was quiet. With a swift movement, Steele now slipped behind the guard, encircled his throat in a choke hold, gripping hard. Within a minute the guard was sinking to the floor. Kushner stared at the ashen face.

  “Fuck, he looks dead.”

  “So what? Just grab your eggs and let’s move.”

  Kushner fought down a surge of ill will. There was no need for Steele to have done that. They were on schedule, slightly ahead. Steele had merely been proving something to himself, and maybe to Cara.

  Kushner finished up, taking the lost eggs and strapping on his backpack. They exited the main room and walked across the antechamber, reaching the windows in less than a minute. Steele removed the plastic from the hole.

  Kushner slipped the gripper gloves back on and then leapt up into the rim of the hole, holding the glass both inside and out. Then, he rolled his body outside and put both hands onto the glass. Slowly, he climbed.

  It took long minutes to reach the top of the building. All the while he was thinking of Steele’s recklessness and callousness and how Jax appeared to be heading in the same direction. The first part of the heist had gone seamlessly, everything flowing like a dream. But now, it would become harder. There was a long way to go.

  Kushner stood up and signaled to the higher rooftop where Jax and Cara waited.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The signal was returned in the affirmative. All was well.

  Steele dropped down beside Kushner.

  “What you did down there was immoral. I’m not one to whine or dwell if a man challenges us or tries to hurt us, but what you did defies logic.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Kush-baby. I do what I want. You, Jax and Cara think you run the show. Good ole Steele follows orders. But I get my kicks where and when the fuck I want.”

  “Your kicks? You enjoyed that?”

  “Damn right. There’s nothing like holding someone’s life in your hands, having the power to let them live or die. It’s better than sex.”

  Kushner bent lower as he worked, trying to disengage himself from the psychopath he’d never known he worked with. Why on earth were feelings running so high with this job? What had changed?

  Together, Kushner and Steele strapped three eggs each to four drones and then two to one more. Five drones in total. Kushner took a remote from a lower compartment of his backpack and turned it on, firing up the first drone. Red lights flickered at the tips of its wings and at its nose. With a twist of a toggle button, Kushner made it rise into the air and then flew it upward on a direct angle toward the roof where Jax and Cara waited.

  Thirty seconds later Jax took possession of the drone. Kushner fired up the second.

  That way, they flew five drones, fourteen Fabergé eggs, and countless millions of dollars from the rooftop of the Azure to the rooftop of a nearby office building.

  Jax used the infra-red flashlight to signal they’d received everything in good order. It had worked. Kushner felt excitement.

  Now to the next phase of the plan, he thought.

  But then, everything changed.

  An alarm exploded into life, shrill and loud in the silence on the roof. Steele jumped two feet in the air. Kushner stared up at him.

  “Their security’s better than we gave it credit for. Shit.”

  Faye would be scrambling now, trying to cancel the alarm and cause a few distractions. Jax and Cara should already be on their way. It was no time to panic.

  Kushner walked over to a pure black, incredibly strong length of stainless-steel cable that stretched from the top of their roof across to the Wyndham hotel. It was gradually angled since the Wyndham was a hundred feet lower. Kushner shrugged on a harness and fastened a pulley to the cable, which he then grabbed hold of.

  “Go,” Steele said.

  Kushner leapt off the top of the Azure, hanging onto the pulley. It slid down the zip line, gathering speed. A loud grating noise filled Kushner’s ears, drowning out the sound of the alarm. He was away from the Azure and halfway to the Wyndham in a matter of seconds, feet kicking in mid-air, hanging on grimly.

  The hard rooftop came up fast. Kushner let go three feet before impact, hit and rolled. Pain flashed through his shoulder and down his spine, but he sprang up onto his feet, turned and signaled Steele.

  Go.

  He could see the big man’s shadow. The alarms continued to grate through the air. Kushner shrugged out of the harness, ran to the edge of the roof, and gazed down at the streets below. Activity was light. There were no sirens closing in. But the heat was coming. Enough heat to close down the city. Kushner could feel it coming.

  They’d prepared for it.

  Steele landed hard, cursing. Kushner smiled in the darkness, rubbing his own throbbing shoulder. It would be worth the pain. He hurried over to the only door that lead off the roof.

  It was keypad secured. Kushner punched in the code. He and Steele ran down the stairs, starting with two flights before racing across to a service stairwell for the other thirty or so. They were fast, but precise and careful. They breathed easily. They didn’t stop.

  Steele was at Kushner’s back all the way, the big presence a little off-putting. Kushner would rather have Steele in front, so if he fell there was something big, soft and dumb to land on.

  They hit the bottom, turned right through a white door, and trotted along a narrow hallway. Soon, it gave onto a storage room, full of bedding. Beyond that were some wide, straight hallways leading to a discreet side-exit door. Kushner again punched a number into a keypad and pushed at the door until it cracked open.

  He checked the street outside.

  It was quiet and dark. They were on the other side of the Wyndham, away from the Azure. Kushner pulled his backpack tighter and stepped outside. The sound of countless sirens cut through the Las Vegas night, sending a shiver down his spine.

  “Doesn’t matter how good you are,” Steele whispered from behind. “Or how fast. Those sirens make your ass cheeks clench every time.”

  Kushner agreed. By his best guess, the cops were approaching the Azure. Soon, they’d be flooding the area.

  They kept to the darker streets, heading east, away from the Strip. They crossed Koval and turned left, ending up on Lana Avenue. By comparison, Lana was as quiet as a grave.

  From the darkness, a figure emerged.

  “Hey,” Faye greeted them. “What happened in there?”

  “Alarm went early.” Kushner shrugged. “Wasn’t my fault. My moves were perfect. Steele probably tripped something.”

  “No way,” the big man growled. “Stop thinking you’re the shit, man. I saw you primping and patting your hair when we got down from the roof.” Steele shook his head. “Fucking Adonis complex.”

  Faye licked her lips. “We’re on to Plan B. Not my favorite.”

  “Don’t worry, it’ll run like clockwork,” Kushner said. “I came up with it.”

  They set off walking, heading back to Koval and then turning right, away from the Azure. Kushner frowned the whole way, thinking about what Steele had said. “You can’t put a man down because he likes to take care of himself. I look good. I am good. What’s wrong with that?”

  “What’s wrong . . .” Steele spat then took a deep breath. “Man, you’re so vain that when Cara turned you down you went out and found a girl to date that looked just like her for spite. That’s fucked up, man. That’s weird shit.”

  Faye, as always kept out of it. Kushner
assumed she wasn’t with them in mind, just body. She’d be daydreaming of special algorithms or something.

  “Cara is weird,” Kushner bit back. “What’s wrong with her anyway? Not wanting a guy like me?”

  Steele just shook his head, giving up. Both he and Kushner still had their backpacks attached. They were full of special tools and needed to be stashed properly, which was where Koval came in handy. There was a Shell station near Westin with some overgrown wasteland behind that nobody ever ventured into. It was fenced off and locked for some reason even Faye couldn’t fathom. It would be a good place to stash their backpacks until the heat died down.

  As they approached an Arco station, a police car turned the corner, crawling along. Kushner saw a white face in the passenger seat, staring out the window at every passerby.

  Shit.

  They kept their heads down, but the car slowed even more. Kushner felt Steele tensing at his side.

  “Stay calm.”

  “Fuck off, pretty boy.”

  Kushner pretended to talk to Faye, looking away from the cops, but when the one in the passenger seat shouted, he briefly closed his eyes. This wouldn’t end well.

  “Stop there,” the cop said.

  Kushner looked surprised, turning with wide eyes. “Hi,” he said. “We’re just heading to Caesar’s.”

  The cop got out, hand on his holstered weapon. He glared at the three of them with judging eyes. Kushner didn’t look away.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “I need you to turn around, hands up against the wall. Feet apart.”

  How is it possible? Kushner wondered.

  “I’m doing nothing,” Steele growled. “Until you give me a reason why.”