The Job: A Fox And O'Hare Novel Part 2

"Not that kind of show-and-tell," Nick said. "That show-and-tell comes later. I brought you a mask."

"Of course," Kate said. "I knew that."

"It's made from a thin layer of hard resin. A computer does a detailed facial reconstruction from just a couple pictures and then sculpts the mask in a 3-D printer. It's ridiculously easy to get a mask like this. You can order one online for three hundred dollars and have it delivered to your door in forty-eight hours. Of course, I can get it done faster."

"You could have told me this on the phone. You didn't have to come here."

"True, but I miss you when you're gone."

Kate's heart skipped a beat. He missed her! Oh good grief, she thought. Get a grip. He's a con man!

Nick looked around the room. "I'm starved. Where's the minibar?"

"This room doesn't have a minibar."

Nick kicked his shoes off and stretched out on the bed, hands behind his head. "We need to change hotels. I have standards."

"You need to change hotels. I'm fine. I have no standards."

Nick grinned and crooked his finger at her. "Come here. I like a woman with no standards."

Kate squinched her eyes closed and grunted. "Unh!" She opened one eye and studied him. "What do you know about the Gleaberg robbery that you aren't telling me?"

"Nothing," he said. "But I've done some business with Big Mike. A few years ago, right after his payola scandal, I got him to invest in a phony satellite radio network on the promise that his artists would get airplay."

"He went for that?"

"It appealed to his greed and his desire to win. He was still angry about being locked out of the terrestrial radio business, but there was nothing in the court's ruling that kept him from satellite radio. The deal I offered made him feel like he was getting back at the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who took him down. He was the perfect mark. Rich, dishonest, and greedy."

"How much did you and your crew take him for?"

"Fifteen million dollars," Nick said.

"He never reported it to the police or FBI."

"Of course not," Nick said. "It was humiliating. The wealthier the mark, the less likely he is to go to the police and admit he was played for a fool."

They went silent when someone knocked on the door.

"Room service?" Nick asked in a whisper.

Kate shook her head no.

There was another knock. "Agent O'Hare? It's Maxine Cutler."

Nick grabbed his shoes and the Jessup mask, moved into the closet, and closed the door.

Kate unlatched the security lock and peeked out at Cutler.

"Can I come in?" Cutler asked. "It's important."

"Sure," Kate said, stepping aside.

"We got a bulletin from Interpol," Cutler said. "Nick Fox has struck again. He stole an ancient goblet covered with jewels from the Aykut Demirkan Museum in Istanbul last night."

"How do they know it was Fox?"

"They lifted his prints from a display case." Cutler handed Kate an envelope. "Your boss works fast. He has you on an early morning flight to Istanbul. The Bureau's legal attache for Asia has already approved your travel with Turkish authorities. Your itinerary and boarding pa.s.ses are in the envelope."

Kate did a fast check of the boarding pa.s.ses and inwardly groaned. Sixteen hours with two plane changes. Coach.

"I'll drop off the car and my weapon with the field office at five A.M.," she said to Cutler. "If you could have someone take me to the airport, I'd appreciate it."

Cutler left, and Nick reappeared from out of the closet.

"About the fingerprints," she said.

Kate knew that making fake fingerprints was easy. Kits could be bought online from China for as little as six dollars. The trick was getting Nick's prints in the first place. A law enforcement officer could access the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System to see the prints taken from Nick when he was arrested. But unless the IAFIS had been hacked, which n.o.body had succeeded in doing yet, there would be a log of anyone accessing Nick's prints. She'd check that out, but she doubted she'd find any record of access besides the one initiated by Turkish law enforcement to match the print found at the Aykut Demirkan Museum. So that left only one possibility.

"Whoever is doing this got close enough to you at some point to get your fingerprints from you or from something you touched," Kate said.

Nick flopped back onto the bed. "That narrows it down to every bartender, waitress, and hotel housekeeper I've ever encountered."

"Why the goblet?" Kate asked. "What does the goblet have in common with the Gleaberg painting?"

"Nothing, other than me."

"Do not leave the United States until this is over," Kate told him. "Go into hiding. Act as if you're a fugitive on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. That shouldn't be too hard for you ... since you are number seven."

Kate awoke just as the Turkish Airlines plane began its early morning descent to Ataturk Airport. Far below her the Bosphorus Strait divided the historic city of Istanbul. Europe was to the west and Asia to the east.

She was traveling light with just her duffel bag, so she deplaned and went straight to Customs. She showed the officer her brown FBI pa.s.sport, which notified authorities that she was on official business. The agent eyed her suspiciously for a few long seconds, stamped her doc.u.ments, and motioned her through.

Kate had been told that someone would meet her just past Customs. She expected it would be a driver from the Turkish police or the U.S. Consulate. The man holding the iPad with her name on it was neither of those. He wore a black fez, dark sungla.s.ses, a white turtleneck s.h.i.+rt, and a black Nehru jacket with a flowered emblem on the breast pocket. The emblem was a tulip with a curved dagger for a stem.

With the exception of the iPad, Kate thought he could have pa.s.sed for a Turkish a.s.sa.s.sin in a cheesy 1960s spy movie. In which case there would be another a.s.sa.s.sin in a fez hiding behind a pillar, waiting to kill her with a blow dart if the turtleneck killer failed. And then a handsome man would pop up to save her. Indiana Jones.

The turtleneck killer approached her. "Welcome to Istanbul, Bayan O'Hare." He tucked the iPad under one arm and reached for her duffel bag with the other. "I am Erdin. I will take you to the Aykut Demirkan Museum."

"I was expecting someone from the Turkish police or the U.S. Consulate to meet me."

"I work for the Demirkan Foundation. Chief Investigator Semir Atalay of the Emniyet Genel Mudurlugu, our police department, and Bayan Ceren Demirkan, the director of the Foundation, are awaiting you at the museum. They are most eager to see you. Please come along."

Kate followed him out of the building and onto the tarmac, where a black helicopter was waiting. The tulip and dagger emblem was splashed across its side, and a red carpet led to the steps. They boarded without ceremony, and the helicopter lifted up and headed out over the Bosphorus.

Erdin pointed out the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and Topkapi Palace. "These are our national treasures," he said, his voice coming through Kate's headset. "They were long ago constructed as symbols of faith, wealth, and power. They are now open to the public."

"I know all about them," Kate said. "I saw a special on the Travel Channel, but they're even more amazing in person, with the morning sun s.h.i.+ning on them."

The chopper followed the Bosphorus Strait toward a huge suspension bridge. Just before they reached the bridge, the helicopter veered sharply to the west, and flew over a large waterfront villa.

"This is the Aykut Demirkan Museum," Erdin told Kate. "It's in a yali, a summer house that has belonged to the Demirkans for many generations."

Kate had grown up on a bunch of army bases, and her summer house experience was a tent in the woods. The Demirkan summer house was huge. Four stories, with ornate marble and gold tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.

The helicopter fluttered down onto the lawn, not far from a tall woman wearing a white dress and a short man in an ill-fitting gray suit. The welcoming committee, Kate thought, waiting for the helicopter to wind down before she disembarked and walked to the man and woman.

"I'm Special Agent Kate O'Hare," she said, offering her hand to the man, who had a high, s.h.i.+ny brow and a wispy gray-flecked goatee.

"Chief Inspector Atalay," he said. "I look forward to working with you." He turned toward the woman beside him. "This is Ceren Demirkan. She runs her family's foundation, which owns this museum and the collection it contains."

Ceren offered her hand. She had long, delicate fingers, and pale, glowing skin that gave the middle-aged woman an almost ethereal quality.

"I'm so glad you're here," Ceren said. "I understand you're the expert on Nicolas Fox."

"I've spent a lot of years chasing him," Kate said.

"You are also the only one who has ever captured him. And if you did it once, you can do it again."

Kate was beginning to see the dynamic at work here, and why the Bureau's legal attache had been able to clear her travel so quickly. Ceren thought Kate was the one and only magician who could snag Fox and reclaim the lost goblet. Chief Inspector Atalay didn't look as convinced.

Ceren led Kate and Atalay to the museum.

"I'm sure you've noticed the family crest displayed everywhere," Ceren said. "The tulip symbolizes the flowering of culture, art, and architecture in the Ottoman Empire during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the period represented by the majority of the pieces in our collection. Our ancient ancestor Aykut Demirkan was a sipahi, what you'd consider a medieval knight. It is by virtue of his fort.i.tude, bravery, and business ac.u.men that our family grew and spread across Europe, much like the tulip. The kilij, or saber, represents our family's, and our foundation's, enduring patriotism, strength, and determination."

Ceren walked past the main entrance and took them to the side of the building where police tape cordoned off an area around a fire exit. The steel double doors appeared to have been forced open. An armed uniformed police officer guarded the door.

"This is where Nicolas Fox broke in two nights ago," Chief Inspector Atalay said. "He forced open the door with a crowbar."

The nature of the crime matched the simplistic approach of the Gleaberg job, Kate thought. It bore no resemblance to the audacious, precisely planned heists that were the trademark of Nick Fox.

"Where were the guards and patrols?" Kate asked.

"There weren't any," Ceren replied. "Naturally, we have guards during the day when people are going through the museum and could steal or vandalize items in the collection. But at night, we rely upon state-of-the-art alarm systems that include motion detectors, heat sensors, infrared beams, and complete video surveillance of the interior and exterior of the building. All the alarms worked perfectly and the police were here within five minutes, but by then it was already over."

"Have you looked at the video?"

The line of Ceren's mouth tightened. "There isn't any video. It was disconnected a while back during a service call, and was never put back on line."

"Oops," Kate said.

Atalay nodded. "An unfortunate oversight, but at least we know the thief arrived and escaped by boat. We would have cut him off on our way here if he was using any other kind of vehicle or if he was on foot. There's only one road leading to this museum."

Atalay opened the door, and the three of them went inside. They climbed a few steps and walked through another door into a gallery with a low ceiling and walls covered with mosaic tiles. The shattered display case was in the center of the gallery, surrounded by jeweled artifacts, including piles of gold coins, housed in other cases around the room. There were ornamental vases on pedestals as well.

"Tell me about the cup that was taken," Kate said to Ceren.

"It was a jewel-encrusted goblet," Ceren said. "It belonged to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. He first drank from it to mark the settlement in 1555 of the Ottoman-Safavid war that granted him rule of Baghdad, and the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The goblet has incalculable historical importance."

Kate knew the Demirkan wasn't the first private museum to rely entirely on their alarm systems for after-hours security. The Kunsthal in Rotterdam made the same decision. They had been robbed a couple years before of seven paintings worth more than $130 million in just two minutes. The thieves were caught, but the mother of one of them incinerated several paintings in a tragic effort to get rid of the evidence.

"This isn't Fox's style," Kate said. "Everything I know about him tells me this isn't his work."

"We found Fox's fingerprint on a shard of gla.s.s inside the display case," Atalay said.

"That's another reason why I don't think it's him," Kate said. "He's not that sloppy."

"He was in a hurry," Atalay said. "He knew he couldn't beat the security system, so he gave up, and ignored the sensors, setting them off. He knew that would give him only two or three minutes before we descended on the museum in force. People make mistakes under that kind of pressure."

"He wouldn't put himself in that situation," Kate said.

"Unless he was desperate," Atalay said. "And I think it's fair to say that he probably is desperate. He's been on the run for a year since his escape."

She could have told him he was wrong, that Nick's escape was planned by the FBI, and that he was now working for the U.S. government ... sort of. But she didn't. This was highly cla.s.sified information.

"If there is anything either of you need to pursue your investigation," Ceren said, "the full resources of the Demirkan Foundation are at your disposal."

Atalay and Ceren exchanged a few words in Turkish, Ceren walked away, and the chief inspector motioned for Kate to come with him.

"Come along," he said. "Let us get some breakfast."

Kate and Atalay walked to a little cafe facing the Bosphorus, got a table by the window, and Atalay ordered in Turkish for both of them. The waiter served them cay, a hot tea in tiny gla.s.ses, and went off to place their order with the cook.

"The Demirkans are a very rich, very politically connected family in Turkey," Atalay said. "They were informed that the fingerprint on the gla.s.s belonged to Nicolas Fox before I was a.s.signed to investigate the case. By the time I was told, they had already learned about you and made sure that Interpol alerted the FBI about Fox. They also pressured the Turkish government to instantly grant the FBI's request to send you here. So, you see, you are in charge, Agent O'Hare. I am here to help you in any way possible."

"It's exactly the opposite," Kate said. "This is your city and your investigation. I'll offer you what I know about Fox, and my opinion if I think it might help, but I won't get in your way. I'm an interested observer."

He smiled, clearly relieved. "My friends call me Semir."

Kate relaxed back in her chair. "And I'm Kate. So, Semir, I know this messes things up for you, but I'll say this again. I'm pretty sure Fox didn't do this. I think this is the work of an imposter."

"It doesn't matter whether it was Nicolas Fox or Michael J. Fox. Whoever did it is long gone."

"You know who Michael J. Fox is?"

"Of course I do. This is Istanbul, not Siberia, though I am sure they've seen Back to the Future there, too."

"What makes you so sure the thief isn't in Istanbul anymore?"

Atalay gestured to the Bosphorus. "Look out there, Kate. Tell me what you see."

Kate looked out at the strait. It was bustling with fis.h.i.+ng boats, tour boats, ferries, cruise s.h.i.+ps, freighters, patrol boats, barges, and just about every other kind of oceangoing vessel that existed, with the possible exceptions of an aircraft carrier and a four-masted Spanish galleon.

"It looks like an L.A. freeway at rush hour," Kate said. "Only with s.h.i.+ps."

"For thousands of years, the Bosphorus has been the gateway to the world, which is why Istanbul is here and why it was the capital of three great empires," Atalay said. "Once the thief was out there on the water, he could have met with a s.h.i.+p bound for anywhere. I'm sure that's what he did. It's what I would do."

The waiter came back with a platter of cheeses, bread and olives, a skillet of fried eggs with dried spicy sausage, flat bread rolled and stuffed with meat and cheese, a sweet pastry filled with potato, and a square of clotted cream served with honey on fresh bread.