The Chase (2 page)

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think so.”

Nick made a right onto Eighth Street and then a left onto Figueroa, a one-way northbound street. He sped south, weaving through four lanes of oncoming traffic. Kate stayed on his tail. Ryerson swore and placed his hands on the dashboard to brace himself as Kate narrowly avoided one head-on collision after another.

The Los Angeles Convention Center loomed ahead of them. A banner across the intersection depicted the starship
Enterprise
and welcomed attendees to W
ORLD
S
TAR
C
ON
43,
THE
U
LTIMATE
T
REKKER
E
XPERIENCE
.

Nick turned right, crashed through the wooden gate arm at the entrance to the parking lot, and skidded to a stop in front of the Convention Center. He bolted out of his police car and into the building.

Kate stopped behind Nick’s black-and-white. She and Ryerson jumped out of their car and ran inside after him but came to an abrupt stop as soon as they stepped through the doors. They faced 720,000 square feet of exhibition space packed with thousands of Starfleet officers, Klingon warriors, Romulan centurions, Andorian ambassadors, and Ferengi traders.

“How can we possibly secure this building before he slips out?” Ryerson asked.

“We can’t,” Kate said.

It was a hard truth Ryerson didn’t want to swallow. Kate marched into the crowd to look for Nick while Ryerson stayed where he was. A Vulcan Starfleet science officer in a blue velour shirt walked toward Ryerson. The pointy-eared alien raised his right hand in the traditional Vulcan greeting as he passed.

“Live long and prosper,” the Vulcan said.

Ryerson rolled his eyes as Nick Fox, the tenth man on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, walked casually out the door.

Kate left Ryerson at the Convention Center to coordinate the search for Nick with the LAPD. She confiscated Nick’s gym bag from the black-and-white as evidence and took it back to the Federal Building for processing, completing the necessary paperwork in ten minutes. Twenty minutes later she was on her way up the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu when her father called.

“That was a hell of a chase,” Jake O’Hare said. “I wish you could have put it off until the U.S. Open was over, though. The stations cut in with their live coverage just as Tiger was trying to swing his way out of a sand trap.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“I recognized your car. But you could have been driving a tank and I would’ve known it was you. You drive like a maniac. You corner too hard.”

When Kate was sixteen, she and her younger sister, Megan,
lived with their dad on an army base in Germany. Every weekend, Jake would take Kate to a defensive driving course to teach her how to drive in all kinds of conditions. After she’d learned how to maneuver on an oil-slicked road, he’d shot out her tires so she could master that, too. By comparison, her driver’s license test was a snooze.

“Who were you chasing?” Jake asked.

“Nick Fox.”

That had Jake smiling. “I thought it was him. Did you catch him?”

“I’m closing in,” Kate said. “I’ll call you later.”

She drove into the cobblestone motor court of a sprawling estate off Kanan Dume Road and parked her nondescript, slightly dented car that was missing a mirror beside a pristine black Aston Martin Vanquish. A
FOR SALE
sign was staked into the manicured lawn.

She knew there’d been a time when a real estate investor could dump fifteen million dollars into building a spec home in the hills above Malibu, dress it up with an infinity pool, a screening room, a bowling alley, and a kitchen Gordon Ramsay would love, and count on selling it at a five-million-dollar profit. Those days were over years ago and they weren’t coming back. That’s why this place sat vacant while three banks fought over ownership.

Kate walked into the house without knocking, strode across the vast entry hall and into the gourmet kitchen. Nick Fox stood at the cooktop in the center island, sautéing some fish in a pan. He wore a polo shirt and faded jeans, and had a chef’s apron tied around his waist.

“That was fun,” Nick said. “There’s nothing like ending the week with a restful Sunday drive.”

“Did you have to go the wrong direction on a one-way street?”

“I was worried you weren’t feeling challenged.”

“That was very considerate of you.” She took a seat on a stool at the counter. To her left, a farmhouse table nestled beside a large picture window with a commanding view of Santa Monica Bay. The table was set for three. A bottle of wine in a cooler and a pitcher of iced tea had been placed on the table.

“What’s for lunch?” Kate asked.

“I was pressed for time, so all I was able to whip up was deviled eggs with a dollop of Tsar Nicoulai caviar on top, a selection of fruit and artisanal cheeses, and sautéed Dover sole with lemon and capers.”

Kate’s idea of preparing a quick meal was eating Cap’n Crunch out of the box, so this was Christmas dinner by comparison.

The house alarm pinged when the front door was opened and closed. A moment later, Kate’s boss, Carl Jessup, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, ambled into the kitchen. He was carrying a folder under his arm.

Jessup was in his fifties, a native Kentuckian with the tanned, deeply lined face and sinewy body of a man who worked outdoors with his hands. It was a country look that had served him well during the many years he’d spent undercover before he got kicked up to a desk.

“Nice place,” Jessup said, taking in the décor. “How did you get furniture in here and the utilities turned on?”

“I’m the broker,” Nick replied with a smooth, absolutely perfect British accent. “John Steed, Sotheby’s International Realty, London office, at your service. I have some very motivated clients overseas who are eager to purchase vacation homes in Malibu. So I obviously needed to turn the lights on and dress the house.”

Jessup eyed Nick suspiciously. “You haven’t sold it, have you?”

“Not yet.”

“Not ever,” Jessup said.

“You’re no fun,” Nick said, dropping the accent.

“I just let you rob a bank and go on a high-speed chase through downtown Los Angeles in a police car, which reminds me—” Jessup held his hand out to Nick, palm up. “Have you got something for me?”

Nick reached into his pocket and dropped a thumb drive into Jessup’s hand. “Here are all the dirty photos and videos that Fred Bose was using to blackmail regulators to get his company’s flawed but wildly profitable medications approved. I don’t think Fred will be declaring this thumb drive among the items missing from his safety deposit box.”

Jessup put the drive into his coat pocket. “What happened to everything else you stole from the bank vault?”

Nick placed the servings of sole onto plates and spooned on lemon caper sauce. “I left them in the squad car. Even the uncut conflict diamonds.”

“What was Bose doing with those?” Jessup asked.

“Not him,” Nick said. “You might want to check out whoever kept safety deposit box number 7210. They have been very naughty.”

“Those diamonds are untraceable,” Kate said. “I’m surprised you didn’t keep them.”

Nick smiled at her. “I’m on the side of the angels now.”

“And thanks to your effort in downtown L.A. today, nobody will ever suspect it,” Jessup said. “Or question that Kate is absolutely committed to catching you. It was a win-win all around. I just wish you hadn’t caused so much property and vehicle damage.”

“We had to make it exciting for the viewers at home,” Nick said. “Or they might have switched to
Judge Judy
instead.”

“TV ratings weren’t one of my concerns,” Jessup said.

His biggest concern was that Nick would get caught, and it would be revealed that the FBI had sprung him from jail and was using him to help nail major crooks, even as he’d become one of the Bureau’s Ten Most Wanted criminals. Kate’s job was to be Nick’s handler and protector while, at the same time, leading the FBI’s manhunt for him. Only Jessup and Deputy Director Fletcher Bolton, who picked their targets and ran the secret slush fund that financed Nick’s swindles, knew the truth. And if any of it ever became public, they’d all end up in prison.

They took their plates of Dover sole and went to the table. Nick brought the fruit, cheese, and deviled eggs, and Kate took the white wine from the stoneware cooler.

Jessup helped himself to iced tea, selected an egg with caviar, and slid a file across the table to Kate. “This is for you. It’s the details on your next assignment.”

Kate poured a glass of wine for herself and one for Nick. “Who are we going after this time?”

“No one,” Jessup said. He glanced at Nick. “We want you to break into the Smithsonian.”

“Always a pleasure,” Nick said.

Kate raised an eyebrow at Nick. “You’ve done it before?”

Nick shrugged. “Nobody goes to D.C. without visiting the Smithsonian.”

“Most people go when it’s open.”

“I don’t like crowds.”

Jessup took a sip of his iced tea. “In 1860, British and French forces sacked the Old Summer Palace outside of Beijing and
pillaged the twelve bronze animal heads from a century-old Zodiac fountain in the Imperial Gardens. Each of those Qing Dynasty heads is worth about twenty million dollars. The Chinese are determined to retrieve all of them.”

“We have the rooster in this country,” Nick said. “It’s been on display in the Smithsonian for over a hundred years.”

“I’m surprised you know about it,” Jessup said.

“Of course he does,” Kate said. “It’s a one-of-a-kind piece worth twenty million dollars. I’m more surprised it’s still in the Smithsonian and not a doorstop in Nick’s house.”

“During the financial meltdown, China became our government’s biggest lender,” Jessup said. “So now they are demanding the immediate return of the bronze rooster as a sign of good faith.”

“Give it to them,” Kate said.

“There’s a complication,” Jessup said. “Actually, that’s not accurate. It’s more like a ticking bomb.”

“The Smithsonian won’t give it up,” Nick said. “And now you want us to steal it from them and give it to the Chinese.”

Jessup shook his head. “The Smithsonian has already agreed to return it, at the president’s personal request. The problem is that neither the president nor the current director of the Smithsonian knows that the bronze rooster on display is actually a fake. The real one was stolen from the Smithsonian ten years ago, something the museum and the FBI never disclosed and have diligently covered up ever since.”

“Why would the Bureau and the museum do that?” Kate asked.

“Pride,” Nick said. “They can’t admit that the nation’s most prestigious and secure museum, standing in the shadow of the White House and the U.S. Capitol, was broken into and that the FBI, the nation’s top law enforcement agency, doesn’t have a single
lead in the case. Can you imagine how humiliating that would be?” Nick smiled and shook his head. “It’s one of the most successful art thefts in criminal history. The bragging rights alone make it the score of a lifetime.”

Jessup and Kate stared at Nick.

“Is the rooster a doorstop in your house?” Kate asked.

“I don’t have any doorstops. I’m not a doorstop kind of guy,” he said.

Kate and Jessup stared at him.

“C’mon, really? You think I stole the rooster?”

“You said that you’ve broken into the Smithsonian before,” Jessup said. “In fact, you implied that you’d done it many times.”

“I was thinking about stealing the T. rex,” Nick said.

“How could you possibly steal a T. rex?” Kate asked.

“I have no idea,” he said. “That’s what makes the idea of actually
doing
it so intriguing to me. I still haven’t figured it out. But I didn’t steal the rooster. Somebody beat me to it.”

Jessup sighed and dabbed at his lips with his napkin. “That’s a shame, because that’s going to make things a lot harder. We need you to find the real rooster and switch it with the fake one before we have to give it to the Chinese.”

“How much time do we have?” Kate asked.

“Two weeks. That’s when billionaire businessman Stanley Fu is coming to D.C. in his own Airbus 380 to personally transport the artifact to Shanghai. Once his plane lands, the Chinese government’s antiquities expert will inspect the rooster and discover it’s a fraud, which will spark a major diplomatic crisis, infuriate the Chinese, and humiliate the United States.”

“You need to buy us more time,” Kate told Jessup.

Nick stabbed a small wedge of New Zealand cheddar and
dropped it onto his plate next to a slice of melon. “Two weeks is plenty.”

“The FBI has been trying to find the rooster for a decade,” Kate said. “What makes you think we can do it in two weeks?”

“Because I know who stole it.”