Island of Thieves

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  “You’re psychotic,” said Kilbane.

  “It’s bullshit,” Vic said. “He’s scamming us.”

  Shaw looked at Hargreaves. “You know my history by now, I’m guessing. Half a dozen courses in demolitions and combat engineering. Not counting refresher study and on-the-job training in IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even before the Army I was building shape charges with my grandfather to blow safes. I could probably make a decent bang out of the stuff in Paragon’s coffee room.”

  Hargreaves’s mouth twisted. “Not a bluff.”

  “Right.” Shaw looked at Morton. “Come get it.”

  “I can’t work with that around,” Morton said, his eyes on the red light.

  “You can and you will,” said Hargreaves. “Take it.”

  Morton walked toward Shaw as if he were stepping on thin ice.

  Shaw removed a radio transmitter from his pocket. “Remote trigger,” he said, holding it up to the room as well.

  He handed the jug to Morton before tucking the black-capped sample vial from Professor Mills into the chemist’s chest pocket. “All yours, chief.”

  Morton retreated to the table, staring at the bomb the whole way.

  Hargreaves looked at Shaw. “Where’s the woman? The pilot?”

  “I didn’t like the in-flight entertainment.”

  “What did you do to her?” Kilbane said.

  “Focus,” said Shaw. “How long will it take you to test the stuff?”

  Morton realized that the question was directed at him.

  “We’re skipping the practical tests,” said Morton. “I just have to verify the molecular structure. An hour. Less.” He looked back at Hargreaves, as if making sure he’d followed the script right.

  They all watched as Morton became absorbed in readying the tiny sample for testing, dissolving it into a liquid. Shaw wished there’d been time for Mills to give him a crash course on molecular synthesis when he’d picked up her facsimile of the Avizda chemical. He had no idea if Morton was following procedure.

  The minutes ticked by slowly. Shaw stood near one of the exit doors. He held the remote trigger and the KRISS and watched the others. Rohner’s team was the more nervous of the two. Shifting their feet and changing position every few minutes. Hargreaves and his bunch, maybe more accustomed to armed conflict, stayed put. But Tucker blinked a lot. Vic’s hands shook a fraction when he sipped from a plastic water bottle. Only Hargreaves seemed completely cool.

  “The machine gun,” said Anders. “It’s not necessary to brandish it so.”

  “It’s my security blanket,” said Shaw. He looked at Rohner. “Time to set up the transfer.”

  “Premature, Mr. Shaw.” Rohner shook his head as if he were disappointed. “First let’s be certain you’ve brought what we need.”

  “No. Get it ready. I’ll give you the account. You transfer one dollar as a test. As soon as Morton there gives you the thumbs-up, you pay the remaining five and six nines.”

  “Or you’ll set off your toy?” said Hargreaves. “You’re not that stupid.”

  “I’m also not dumb enough to trust anybody in this room.” He indicated Anders and Rohner. “They hired me to guard against a thief stealing the art. Setting me up as the fall guy when the completed polymer would suddenly disappear.”

  “That’s distorting the truth,” said Rohner. He looked at Hargreaves. “I never had any intention of cutting you out of the deal, James. I was only looking to protect my interests.”

  Shaw smiled maliciously at Rohner. “The big joke was that there really was a thief, and it was you.”

  The magnate managed to look indignant. “If you had been reasonable, all this trouble could have been avoided.”

  “Our friend here is even worse,” Shaw said, nodding to Hargreaves. “His pet freaks chased me all the way across the country. Dead or alive.”

  “A misunderstanding,” Hargreaves said. “We thought you had stolen the chemical from us.”

  “And now that I’ve stolen it from Chen, all is forgiven.” Shaw looked at Rohner. “Transfer the dollar. Call it a good-faith gesture. Try to cheat me and I’ll sell the chemical back to Chen. Or Avizda. Or whoever will pay, I don’t give a shit.”

  Rohner frowned but nodded to Anders, who removed a phone from his pocket.

  “National Bank of Manila,” said Shaw. He waited until Anders was ready and recited the routing and account numbers from memory. Anders typed them into his phone.

  Within a minute Shaw’s own phone chimed from his pocket. A tone he’d assigned to the bank’s incoming notification of a deposit.

  “Good.” He nodded. “Now we wait for the happy news.”

  They all looked to Morton, who opened the front panel of the machine to inject the liquid with the sample into a port.

  Anders conferred quietly with Rohner. Kilbane and Castelli and Pollan watched Hargreaves and Tucker and Vic, who watched them in return. Shaw merited only the occasional glance.

  James Hargreaves was very different from the boisterous guise of Bill Flynn, Shaw had noted. No talking with his hands or excited stories. Flynn’s snappy blue suit had been set aside for something less obviously tailored, in pearl gray. Hargreaves’s real voice, if he had a real voice, was cold and flat. As if the personality of Flynn had been set aside, leaving an icily smooth surface for the next identity, the next op.

  The Paragon team had slowly moved closer to the walls, and to the waist-high troughs of ferns and flowering bromeliads that were the pavilion’s only furnishings. And only cover.

  “What’s your plan after I leave?” Shaw said to Rohner. “Everybody shakes hands and toasts with Dom Perignon?”

  “That’s not your concern,” Anders said.

  Shaw looked at Hargreaves. “How much are you getting?”

  Hargreaves stared back. “Enough.”

  A sudden whirring from the lab table made everyone flinch.

  “Sorry,” Morton said, realizing. “The pump. It’s pushing the solution into the columns.” He pointed to a pair of slender metal tubes in the machine.

  Tucker had an obvious shoulder rig under his suit coat. Vic’s windbreaker was a loose fit, and Shaw speculated whether he might be carrying something larger, like a machine pistol. He supposed the goon’s aim might not be at peak condition, even though the swelling around his raccoon eyes had gone down.

  Vic caught Shaw looking.

  “Asshole,” Vic said.

  “At least you’ll be able to afford a face job,” Shaw said over the sound of the pump. “Maybe get that nose back to three dimensions.”

  “Ease off, Shaw,” said Tucker. “No reason to break anyone’s balls now.”

  “You, too, Vic.” Hargreaves spoke without taking his eyes off Shaw.

  “Not when we’re so close,” Shaw agreed. “If Rohner pays me, he’s got to pay you, right?”

  “Shaw,” Anders said. “I don’t see why you’re trying to make trouble.”

  “A fixation,” said Shaw. “Everybody here’s tried to frame or kidnap or kill me. Guess I have difficulty letting go.”

  “You’ll be rich in . . .” Anders looked at Morton. “How long, Mr. Morton?”

  “Huh?” Morton, distracted from his task of extracting liquid at the bottom of the tube. “Oh. Not long.”

  “Minutes,” said Hargreaves. He had his phone out. Shaw watched as he typed with one thumb. Signaling Louis in the helicopter?

  “Twenty minutes,” said Morton. “Less.”

  Rain began to fall in earnest. The first drops flowed down from the pavilion’s icicle spires into rivulets that collected in the slim gutter at the upper edge of the roof. Instead of funneling the water into downspouts, the gutter released it in minute amounts all along the glass wall, so that an even sheen of rain covered the glittering surface. A beautiful effect, Shaw acknowledged, though no one in the pavilion paid it much heed.

  “It’s completed diffusion,” Morton said, peering at the machine.

  “What does that mean?�
�� said Anders through clenched teeth.

  “I can check the results.” Morton typed on the keyboard in front of the computer monitor. “To see if the known molecules in the polymer match the structure Bao was able to describe. For the unknown portion, I compare those results against the element structure information Mr. Hargreaves has, to see if it’s accurate.”

  “Of course it’s accurate,” said Hargreaves. “Get to it.”

  Morton kept typing. Shaw imagined that the rigid focus helped the chemist keep his cool. Cannon to the right of him, cannon to the left.

  Shaw kept his eyes moving over the men on either side of the pavilion, while his ears strained for any sound of the helicopter. Would Hargreaves have it land before the deal was finished? If Louis was bringing reinforcements, now would be the time.

  Morton looked up from the screen. “It’s good to go.”

  “Say more,” said Hargreaves.

  “We have a complete definition of the new polymer. We’ll have to stress-test it, of course. A lot of different applications. But it’s what Chen advertised. A stable bridging molecule.” Morton tried to smile but it slipped from his face like the rain off the glass. “We’re good to go,” he said again.

  The light atop the packets of phosphorous began to blink. Red. Black. Red. Black.

  No one moved. Then all heads turned to Shaw, who had the remote trigger raised.

  SIXTY-NINE

  Half a mile off the southern shore of Briar Bay Island, Lieutenant John Guerin and Detective Neal Kanellis sat in the cabin of an SPD Harbor Patrol launch. The boat had been pressed into service by the FBI, who, after a lot of arm-twisting above Guerin’s pay grade, had permitted the Seattle officers to be on board strictly as observers. It was Guerin who’d brought the case to the FBI’s attention, along with the informants and the evidence. Somehow the Feds had managed to be generous in return.

  The cabin was cramped and quiet of any noise beyond the launch’s engine and the rainstorm. Cramped because the six members of the FBI’s tactical team aboard had gathered inside once the rain began falling in earnest. With Guerin and Kanellis and the Harbor Patrol pilot, a veteran SPD sergeant named Fajula, that made eight men and one woman in a space hardly big enough for five.

  Quiet because they were all listening intently to a receiver, which was crudely secured by strips of electrical tape to the boat’s dash. Fajula had handed Guerin the tape after the swells on the strait had threatened to pitch the receiver onto the floor.

  The tactical team in their armor and helmets stood gripping tight to the handrails on either side of the cabin’s ceiling. Their carbines were slung over their shoulders. Two of the team had vomited on the crossing from Roche Harbor. Guerin felt slightly queasy himself, but he chalked that up to stress.

  A second HP launch idled unseen a quarter mile to their starboard side. Its running lights doused, just as the lights were on their own craft. Fajula and another pilot had brought the boats up from Seattle early in the day to wait for the FBI team to arrive in Roche. Six more members of the tactical team stood ready aboard the second boat.

  It’s good to go.

  The words came from the receiver. Not the first they’d heard that night through the transmitter taped under Avery Morton’s sweater, but the ones they’d been waiting for. The tactical-team leader held up a hand for silence, even though no one had spoken.

  It’s a stable bridge between polymers. We’ll have to stress-test it, of course.

  The team leader nodded to his men and to Guerin.

  We’re good to go.

  The signal phrase again. Guerin hoped to hell that Morton wasn’t losing his cool. The next ten minutes would be dangerous enough without the chemist giving away the game early.

  Without being told, Fajula pressed the throttle, and the launch picked up speed. The FBI team tilted backward, hanging on tight as the bow lifted. One hand to keep themselves upright, the other reflexively gripping their weapons.

  Shaw would be right in the middle of it, Guerin knew. Perhaps even enjoying himself. Sometimes he wondered about Shaw’s sanity. Being brought up by a hardcase like Dono Shaw could knock anyone’s psyche sideways.

  His stomach lurched. Not the waves, he decided. Not the stress either.

  Shaw did this to his gut, every time.

  SEVENTY

  On the roof of the north wing, Riley swiveled the sniper rifle on its bipod, peering over its sights at the assemblage inside the pavilion. No one had changed places, but something was different. Everyone looking at Shaw instead of at the geek playing with the chemistry set.

  “What’s going on?” he said to Taskine over the comm.

  “Dunno. I’m moving to a better position.”

  Riley waited.

  Taskine’s rumbling voice came back. “There’s a light flashing on the thing that Shaw brought. Ordnance. Has to be.”

  “Shit,” said Riley. “He’s going to blow the place.”

  “I’ve got the shot.”

  “No,” said Riley. He didn’t directly contradict his partner often—he was reminded of some old line he’d heard in high school about getting between dragons and their wrath—but he knew when a move was wrong. “No sign from Hargreaves yet. He needs Shaw alive.”

  “Fuck,” Taskine spat. Riley could feel Task’s frustration through the radio link.

  “Give it a minute,” Riley said. He trained the crosshairs of his scope between the shoulder blades of the easternmost target, one of the rich dude’s bodyguards. The guy was close to the wall, almost perpendicular to Riley’s line of fire. Perfect. The deflection from the glass would be insignificant. His first .300 round would smack dead center.

  “Got them cold,” he said, as much to himself as to Taskine. “Wait for the signal.”

  Then Riley’s head jerked up in shock. His slam-dunk shot had vanished before his eyes.

  Every pane of glass in the entire pavilion had just turned stark white.

  “What in God’s name are you doing?” Anders said to Shaw, who held the remote trigger high. The incendiary device continued to flash ominously. All of them had taken at least one step away from the table. Morton had fled to the closed entrance door that led to the passageway.

  “A dead man’s switch,” said Tucker.

  “Gold star,” said Shaw. “Shoot me now and this room gets very hot, very fast.” He regarded Rohner. “I’ve delivered what you want. Move the money.”

  Anders looked to his boss. Rohner stared at Shaw as if trying to read his mind. Shaw knew the dilemma the billionaire was weighing. If Rohner paid, he lost some control over the situation. If he refused, how could he know what Shaw would do?

  “Two million,” Rohner said to Shaw, “and four more after we leave here.”

  Shaw removed Sofia Rohner’s ivory tablet from his pocket.

  “Where did you get that?” said Anders.

  Shaw set the tablet on the plant trough and touched it with his thumb. A moment later a series of soft thunks echoed from around the walls. The locks of each door but the one behind Shaw engaging.

  “Nobody leaves,” Shaw said, raising the barrel of the machine gun. “Not until I’m paid.”

  He touched the tablet again. The towering pavilion walls changed to a milky white. Even the rain flowing down the outer surface of the glass disappeared from view. The giant room seemed to instantly shrink to a fraction of its former size.

  Morton turned and frantically pulled at the entrance door. It didn’t budge.

  Shaw watched Hargreaves. If this was going to escalate further, it would be the Paragon chief who lit the fuse.

  Tucker and Vic had eyes on their boss as well. Waiting for a signal. They could fall behind the plant troughs, count on having at least some cover from a blast.

  Kilbane and Pollan had their hands on their holstered weapons. Castelli had moved closer to the wall, maybe trying to find a position where he wouldn’t be the first to get shot by either Shaw or Hargreaves’s men.

  “Yes. Ver
y well,” Rohner said. He held both hands out at stomach level, palms down, in a gesture intended to be calming. It looked more as though the tension in the room were causing him to levitate a fraction. “Please don’t do anything.” An entreaty intended for everyone in the vast room.

  Anders, his long face stony, began typing on his phone once more. Within thirty anxious seconds, Shaw’s phone chimed in answer. He was suddenly six million dollars richer, if he lived to see it.

  “Right,” said Shaw. “Here’s what happens now. I leave. I deactivate the trigger.” He held up the remote. “Anyone follows and I shoot them and maybe I decide to set off the bomb, too, just out of spite.”

  Very faintly, another sound made its presence known in the room over the soft patter of rain. The low buzz of a helicopter in the distance. Coming closer.

  “No,” said Hargreaves, slowly drawing a pistol from the small of his back. “Hand over the remote. We’re not trusting you not to blow us all to hell.”

  As if attached by strings to their leader’s movement, Tucker and Vic drew their own guns. Shaw had been right about Vic. The battered thug had brought a Micro Uzi. Twelve hundred rounds a minute, with a recoil that all but guaranteed each bullet would spray without much partiality as to target.

  Across the room Kilbane and his team fanned out. Pollan motioned to Rohner and Anders to move back, an unnecessary command as Anders was already tugging his boss toward the nearest plant trough. Morton cowered by the entrance, still tugging at the door as if it might magically open.

  The low, whipping roar of the helicopter was much closer now.

  “If he moves,” Hargreaves said over the noise, nodding to Shaw, “kill him.”

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Louis Paolo gripped the stick of the Bell 427 helicopter and swore softly to himself. He’d been cursing almost constantly since he lifted off from the field at Anacortes. The dickwad whom Hargreaves had arranged to borrow the helo from had been an hour late, making Louis late in return. The sun would be down by the time he reached Briar Bay Island. Before he’d finished his preflight check, the rain had added to his problems.