The Collectors (Camel Club 2)

right where the Pompeii Casino rose from the Boardwalk. Jerry Bagger had erupted slowly at first. Warning gases and rising rock temperature started off when his $48 million didn’t appear at ten o’clock sharp. At ten past the hour, when he was told there was some confusion about the whereabouts of the money, even his musclemen started to retreat a bit from his presence. Five minutes later the casino king was told by his money guy, after contacting El Banco, that not only was the $8 million in interest not coming his way, but neither was his original $40 mil, since the bank had never received it.

The first thing Bagger did was to try and kill the messenger. His rage uncontrollable, he most certainly would’ve beaten the moneyman to death if his security people hadn’t pulled him off, pleading that the murder would be hard to cover up. Bagger next got on the phone and threatened to jump on a plane and fly down to El Banco and rip their hearts out one by one. The bank president challenged him to come, secure in the fact, he told Bagger, that he had an entire army guarding the premises complete with tanks and artillery.

They did send him an accounting that showed the first three money transfers had been received. And that funds from another account had been ordered transferred into Bagger’s deposit equaling a 10 percent return over two days. Then the amounts had been returned to Bagger each of the three times. The fourth wire had never reached them. When the electronic receipt Bagger’s wire department had gotten back was more closely examined, it turned out not to have the bank’s complete authorization coding, although it would have taken very close scrutiny to find the subtle discrepancy.

On hearing that, Bagger attacked the unfortunate head of his wiring department with one of the man’s own office chairs. It was revealed two hours later, after an intense evaluation, that very sophisticated spyware had been placed on the Pompeii’s computer system enabling the casino’s money wires to be controlled by a third party. With that revelation Bagger demanded a sterilized pistol and ordered the head of his IT department to report to his office. However, the doomed man was smart enough to make a run for it instead. Bagger’s men caught up with him in Trenton. After an interrogation that would have made the CIA proud, it was clear the man was not part of the scam, but had been duped. The only thing this earned him from Bagger was a bullet to the brain delivered by the casino king himself. Later that night the body went into a landfill. And still, with all that murderous energy released, the quake continued to rumble unabated.

“I will kill that bitch, do you hear me!” Bagger was at the windows of his office screaming this over and over to the people far below on the Boardwalk. He hustled back to his desk and took out her card. Pamela Young, International Management, Inc. He ripped the card to shreds and looked wild-eyed at his head of security. “I wanna kill somebody. I need to kill somebody right now, damn it.”

“Boss, please, we gotta keep a handle on this. The money guy’s in the hospital along with the wire punk. And you whacked the IT geek yourself. That’s a lot for one day. The lawyers say it’s gonna be hard keeping the police out of it as it is.”

“I’m going to find her,” Bagger said, looking back out the window. “I’m going to find her. And I’m gonna kill her slow.”

“From your lips to God’s ear, boss,” the muscle said encouragingly.

“Forty million dollars of my money. Forty million!” Bagger said this in such a deranged tone that the burly security chief backed toward the door.

“We’ll get her, I swear, boss.”

Bagger finally seemed to calm a bit. “I want everything you can dig up on the bitch and the jerk-off with her. Pull all the tapes off the cameras and take it around and get an ID. She’s not some walk-off-the-street con. And get some of the cops we have on the payroll to go over her room with the fingerprint crap. Call in every marker I have.”

“You got it.” The man started to hustle out.

“Wait!” Bagger said. The man turned hesitantly back. “Nobody knows that I got scammed, you got that? Jerry Bagger is nobody’s mark. You got that?”

“Loud and clear, boss. Loud and clear.”

“Well, get on it!”

The man fled the room.

Bagger sat down at his desk and looked at the tiny shreds of Annabelle’s business card lying on the carpet. She’s going to look just like that, he thought. After I finish with her.

CHAPTER 40

"YOU’RE LOOKING UNUSUALLY happy this morning, Albert,” Seagraves said as they sat sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups in Trent’s office on the Hill.

“Stock market had a big rally yesterday; my 401(k)’s looking good.”

Seagraves slid a sheaf of papers across the table. “Good for you. Here’s the latest from Central Intelligence. We have two senior levels that’ll give the formal briefings. Your guys can take a week to digest the report, and then we’ll schedule the face-to-face.”

Trent took the pages and nodded. “I’ll check the members’ schedule and get back to you with some dates. Any surprises in here?” he added, tapping the pages.

“Read ’em for yourself.”

“Not to worry, I always do.”

Trent would take the pages home and shortly thereafter would have everything he needed to pass the stolen NSA secrets on to the next stage.

Outside, Seagraves jogged down the steps of the Capitol. And to think, spies used to just drop stuff in the park and pick up their money in cash either at the drop spot or from a P.O. box. And either place was usually where the arrest took place. Seagraves shook his head. No way was he ever ending up on the wall at CIA with the likes of Aldrich Ames and other busted stooges playing at being spies. As a government killer he’d agonized over even the smallest detail. As a spy he saw no reason to change his M.O.

Seagraves was obsessing over a detail right now. His mole at Fire Control, Inc., had called with some unwelcome information. Two guys had been caught sneaking into the storage facility last night, but the rental cops had had to turn them over to the FBI. Seagraves had checked with some of his contacts at the Bureau. According to them, no such arrest had ever happened. His mole had also told him that the rental cops had spotted another guy running away from Fire Control’s storage yard. He’d gotten into an old piece of junk, a Nova, his guy had told him. The description of both the car and the man fit someone well known to Seagraves, though he’d never met him. Now, he decided, would be a good time to remedy that situation. And in Seagraves’ world of sweating the details, you just never knew when a face-to-face might come in really handy later on.

Caleb arrived at work early to find Kevin Philips, the acting director, opening the doors to the reading room. They chitchatted a bit about Jonathan and ongoing projects at the library. Caleb asked Philips if he’d known about the new fire suppressant system going in, but Philips said he hadn’t. “I’m not sure they even kept Jonathan apprised of that information,” Philips told him. “I doubt he knew what gas was being used.”

“You can say that again,” Caleb whispered under his breath.

After Philips had left and before anyone else arrived, Caleb rummaged in his desk and withdrew a small screwdriver and a penlight. With his back to the surveillance camera he slipped these into his pocket and went inside the vault. Quickly making his way to the top floor, he stopped next to the air vent, his gaze averted from the spot where his friend had died. He used the screwdriver to open the vent, noting with satisfaction that the screws came out very easily, as though someone had removed the covering recently. He set the vent down next to the shelf column and shone his light inside the opening. At first he didn’t see anything unusual, but when he swung his light around a third time, he saw it: a small screw hole in the rear wall of the duct. That could have been used to suspend a camera. He held the vent cover back up and eyeballed it. Judging from the position of the screw and the bent grille, the camera would’ve had a clear field of vision of the room.

Caleb screwed the vent cover back on and left the vault. He called Stone and reported what he’d foun

d. He was just settling down to work when someone came in.

“Hello, Monty. What’ve you got there?”

Monty Chambers, the library’s top book conservator, was standing by the front desk, carrying several items. He still had on his green work apron, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up.

“The Doctrina and the Constable’s Pocket-Book,” he said succinctly.

“You’ve been busy. I didn’t even know the Doctrina was out for preservation work.” The Doctrina breve had been written by Juan de Zumárraga, the first bishop of Mexico. It dated from 1544 and had the distinction of being the oldest complete book in the Western Hemisphere that has survived the centuries. The Constable dated from 1710.

“Kevin Philips ordered it,” Chambers replied. “Three months back. The Constable too. Minor stuff, I just had a backlog. You in the vault? Or me?”

“What? Oh, I’ll take them. Thanks.” Caleb carefully accepted the wrapped books from his colleague and set them on his desk. He tried not to think about the fact that between the Doctrina and the Constable he was in possession of a small fortune’s worth of history.

“I’ll get to your Faulkner soon,” Chambers muttered. “Might take some time. Water damage, tricky.”