Just Watch Me (Riley Wolfe 1)

“Thank you, Ms. Dunham,” he said. He nodded his head in something that was almost a bow, and then went quickly out. And with a last regretful look at her thermos, Angela followed him out a moment later.

* * *

—

Chief Petty Officer (ret.) Walter Bledsoe sat behind his desk in the front office of Tiburon Security. It was a plain-looking office, although a veteran of the Navy might have recognized the way it was organized as highly reminiscent of a Naval Office, Operations, Special Warfare Command. That’s how Bledsoe set it up. It was what he was used to. And it was his post. He was an organizer, a facilitator. He was not one of the pointy-headed guys who worked with the high-tech stuff. They were all veterans of the Teams, but the geeks kept to their workroom in the back, and he sat out here and faced the world.

And because everybody in the Teams is expected to pull his weight and perform multiple tasks, Bledsoe was also Tiburon’s receptionist. Most days he didn’t mind. The people who came in here were generally flag-rank assholes, but in twenty years in the Navy Bledsoe had made a career out of handling desk jockeys and pogues just like them, guys who thought their shit was pure gold. He ran into even more of the dickless shitbags now that he was a civilian, but the same techniques worked on them, and Bledsoe was an absolute artist at putting them in their place, civilian or flag rank, without anything that could be called outright insubordination.

A small electronic tone sounded, and Bledsoe looked up from his paperwork. The high-def monitor on his desk showed a man approaching the front door—average height, wiry build, dark and shaggy hair, wearing pressed khakis and a white shirt neatly tucked in. He also sported a pair of large glasses with bright cranberry-colored frames. “That’s just fucking darling,” Bledsoe muttered. He watched as the guy looked again at a slip of paper in his hand, comparing it to the number on the door. “Well, come on, Tinker Bell. Push the fucking button, fucknuts,” Bledsoe muttered.

As if he’d heard, the man reached up and punched the small black button beside the door. Bledsoe moved the mouse over his computer monitor and clicked to open the door. A moment later, the stranger stood before him. “How can I help you . . . sir?” Bledsoe said, deliberately being a bit snarky.

“Uh, I’m looking for a—I mean, I was hoping you might have a job opening?”

“A job? Here?” Bledsoe said. He gave the man a slow and insulting once-over before shaking his head and adding, “You sure you got the right place? We don’t do much ballet here.”

“No, I—I mean, Tiburon, right? And, uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s— You know, I heard about what you guys do, you’re cutting-edge and so forth, and that’s—oh!” He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and placed it in front of Bledsoe. “Uh, my résumé? It’s— I have a master’s? From Stanford? Electronic engineering? I specialize in surveillance and security? And, uh—I got a job at one of those start-ups, you know, Silicon Valley? But, uh—” He gave a one-syllable laugh. “They went belly-up, like, before they even paid me? So, uh . . .” He trickled to a halt and blushed as he saw that Bledsoe’s face had taken on a look of pitying disbelief.

“Listen, buddy,” Bledsoe said after letting the guy sweat for a minute. “I don’t know what you heard, but we only hire guys from the Teams.”

“The teams? You mean—I was on the tennis team in high school . . .”

He stumbled to a stop again as Bledsoe shook his head and said, “No, sport. Not tennis. SEAL Teams. We only hire guys we know from the SEAL Teams.”

“But—but I have a master’s—I know I could help—”

“Not gonna happen,” Bledsoe said firmly. “Not never, not nohow.” He cocked a dubious eyebrow. “Unless you wanna enlist and try for a spot on the Teams first?”

The poor guy just opened and closed his mouth like a goddamn fish. He was obviously suffering, but what the hell did he expect? Bledsoe let him stand there and sweat and swallow convulsively for a moment, and then he finally said, “Seriously, buddy. No fucking chance. Okay?” Bledsoe clicked his mouse, and the door swung open, startling the stranger into a small jump. “Have a nice day,” Bledsoe said, and the guy swallowed one more time, looked around, and then bolted out the door like he was being chased by Apaches. “Fucknuts,” Bledsoe said. “Dumb-ass cock-breath fucknuts.” He flipped the résumé into the trash.

CHAPTER

4

My desk was littered with shit. It usually isn’t. Unless I’m working, putting together some totally new plan. Which I was—or anyway, I was trying. And the crap storm on my desk told the story: photographs, charts, brochures, maps, papers stacked just high enough to hide the empty food wrappers—it was a mess that would have made Mom faint dead away. But she wasn’t going to see it. Nobody was except me. I couldn’t take a chance that somebody might notice it wasn’t what it looked like, which was a pointless shit heap of random papers with no connection. A closer look would show that each piece of this particular shit heap had some connection to the Eberhardt Museum. There were detailed photographs of every window and door, inside and out; close-ups of sections of the roof—especially the area around the skylight; floor plans of every inch of the museum, and even seismic maps of the area under it, along with an ancient map of the subway system. I had busted my ass to collect all this, turned myself into a sweaty fat redneck, spent the night by the dumpster in rags. I tried everything, covered every inch of the place you could possibly think of, and even a lot that you would never imagine—that’s kind of my trademark—and guess what?

None of it was worth a rusty rat’s ass.

There was just No Fucking Way In. Not even for me. Riley Wolfe. The genius of gems. The king of kleptomania. The greatest thief who ever lived. I was stuck on the outside of what could be the greatest heist in history—but only if I could get inside the museum.

And I couldn’t. No way.

“Shit,” I said. “Shit, shit, shit . . .” It didn’t help, no matter how many times I said it. No brilliant plan came to me. Not even a stupid one. I was on the outside looking in. And once the jewels arrived, it would get a whole lot worse. I wouldn’t even be able to get close enough to look in the door.

I picked up a sheet of paper and snarled at it. My checklist. The starting point for my most amazing and impossible job ever. I scanned it, waiting for some overlooked weak spot to leap out at me. Roof access—nope. Basement access—not possible. Alarm system—brand-new unknown tech, so forget it. Infiltrate tech company—uh-uh, not happening with those 12-gauge assholes. Doors, windows, walls, floor, nothing. Every single possible entry point on the list was crossed out. And no matter how many times I stared at the paper, nothing new magically appeared.

I balled it up and let it fall. It was worthless. I was worthless. I couldn’t come up with a single thing they hadn’t covered. Why? Because I couldn’t break out of brain-dead, ordinary, garden-variety thief thinking. Everything I thought of was something any two-bit wannabe would try. Oh, I know—go through the skylight! Sure. And land in front of a couple of trigger-happy assholes with automatic weapons. “Standard,” I mumbled. “Total normal-ass bullshit. Think, damn it.”

But the thoughts were not coming. I’d made my rep by coming up with things nobody else ever could—and by doing them. And before

I did them, just to be extra safe and thorough, I always went through all the ordinary tricks, the dumb-ass things any clown could do—the kind of stuff the cops actually hoped you would try because they’d seen it before and they were ready for it. I checked it all out anyway, always. And usually, that would help me see some totally new and beautiful plan to get what I needed.

This time? Nothing. I hadn’t expected anything, and I didn’t find it. But what I did find was enough to scare away anybody else. I’d thought the security at the Central Bank in Tehran was stiff. This was a lot worse. What they were doing to the Eberhardt was practically Star Trek, like two hundred years ahead of everything else.

So I tried harder. And because nobody else would think of it, I did research on Ludwig Eberhardt, the dynasty’s founder, the old asshole who built the place. I did enough research to write a fucking thesis. I learned things about him I would bet nobody else in the world knew. And I even got one quick moment of hope when I learned about the private train track the old bastard had built so he could ride his luxury Pullman car from his home all the way in to his museum.

I almost got squashed by a subway train, but I found the tunnel old Ludwig’s track was in. And it was just another dead end. Just like all the other dead ends that were piled up on my desk. All of them garbage, useless. Unworkable, even fatal. And I was out of ideas.