A sample from The Final Heist
This short chapter sets the action plot in motion, when Eddie Grant meets Lara Studer and the robbers crash into a jewelry store.
Chaos
“Here’s something that might be interesting,” Francine said, handing him the card. “This lawyer says she represents a Swiss bank on a matter you may know something about. She’s been waiting for a few minutes.”
The thick cream-colored card was engraved with the name of a prominent Paris firm he had hired for legal work in the past.
“Lara Studer. Good sturdy Swiss name. What’s she like?”
“Businesslike. Polite. Good Parisian French with almost no accent. About your age, well dressed, what men call a looker. She asked if I spoke German….”
“Let me guess,” Eddie said. “You told her you’re an Israeli Jew and under no circumstances do you speak German. But you smiled at her and she accepted it.”
“We had a nice chat. She seems pleasant, if you take into consideration that she’s Swiss.”
“Well, let’s see what Madame Studer has on her mind. Give me a couple of seconds to put on my jacket.”
The instant she walked in Eddie recognized her—the woman with the newspaper. From the expensive coiffure to the bespoke dark-blue silk suit, she was a walking advertisement for success and money. Francine had been correct that she was a looker, but had guessed a few years high on the age.
He studied her as she walked toward his desk. Her skirt fell at just the right place and swished fetchingly around her thighs with each step. She wasn’t tall, but a trim athletic build gave her a glow of radiant good health. Other than pale lipstick he saw no sign of makeup—no fake lashes shading the liquid brown eyes, no plumped lips. Natural. Before Aurélie he’d have made every effort to know her better.
“I won’t take much of your time, Monsieur Grant, but I have a client who thinks you might be able to help him with a problem,” she said as he invited her to sit in one of the chairs across from him. For a reason he couldn’t articulate, her tone hinted at some doubt about her client’s case.
“You know about the court judgment?”
“Le Monde called.”
“My client is president of a small and specialized bank in Zurich. His directors believe the bank is entitled to some of the gold you found, but the court decided otherwise. I do not know if the bank will appeal, but the money involved is significant.”
Eddie held up his hand to stop her, “I have never understood how a Swiss bank could claim a cache of Reichsbank gold that was buried in 1944. But aside from that, and just so there’s no misunderstanding, I need to tell you that my interest in what the newspapers call the Treasure of Saint-Lazare was not the gold. I was looking for a Renaissance painting by Raphael, which wasn’t in the vault and still hasn’t been seen.”
“There is a suspicion that some of the gold may have been … diverted after it was found. There are stories around to that effect.”
“This is the age of the conspiracy theory,” he replied. “Stories do float around from time to time, but the first ones I heard were so ridiculous I decided to ignore the rest. There’s a solid chain of custody. The prefect of police was in the room when the vault was opened by a police locksmith. Arsène Lupin himself could not have carried any of it away.”
She said, “My client started out on this legal journey trying to learn what happened to the money his bank invested in Claude Khan’s gold fund and wondered if you have any idea where that gold might have gone. The story was that Khan bought quite a lot of bullion on behalf of his investors and shipped it to Dubai for storage, but the government there isn’t cooperating to help the investors. It appears they were clearly defrauded.”
Eddie replied, “I heard the same story about Khan’s gold. About once a year someone calls to ask me about it, and I tell them all the same thing. I simply don’t know where it went.
“I didn’t invest in the gold fund. I only went to one presentation, a cocktail party at his banker’s home on Île Saint-Louis, and I left early. I can’t even tell you for sure that Khan bought the first ounce of gold. The whole thing could have been an elaborate fraud.
“You are talking about two different things. They both involve a lot of gold bullion, but otherwise they are as different as night and day.
“Case One, your client’s fight over the Saint-Lazare gold is with the Bank of France. A police locksmith opened the vault, and the entire hoard was under police guard until the bank took it away the next morning. I would very strongly encourage you not to be hinting in public that I took any of it.” She started to speak but he held up his hand to stop her.
“Case Two, my involvement in Khan’s fund was so tiny it was invisible. My interest was in Khan himself, not his gold. So, same warning.” The words came out with more edge that he intended, and for an instant he considered apologizing but just as quickly rejected the thought.
“No, no. No one I’m involved with is saying that. We’re just looking for whatever information we can find. In fact, I doubt that I would be here if the court hadn’t scheduled its decision for today.”
Eddie said, “I realize that’s what you do. I do wonder a bit, though, why you’re doing it now rather than much earlier in the case. After all, I testified under oath to everything I know and there’s a transcript. A couple of banks sent lawyers to my deposition. Is it possible you weren’t involved in the case at that time?”
“That’s right. The bank changed law firms.”
“How many times has it changed lawyers?”
“Several,” she replied.
“I think I understand your problem. You’re trying to solve a French legal problem for people whose idea of court systems may not match ours.”
Her rueful smile was all the answer he needed.
“I have a question for you,” he said.
“If I can answer it I will,” she replied.
“Someone who was at the court told me he got the feeling the other party, Viktor….”
“Viktor Gregoriev,” she replied.
“Viktor Gregoriev might have a strained relationship with your client. Might even be jealous of him.”
She replied, “I can’t get inside Gregoriev’s head, but he and Igor are not friends even though they must work together from time to time. After all, they are both Russian bankers.
“Viktor does not have a very good reputation insofar as his personal life is concerned. He’s a well-known danger to women and has paid off more than a few rather than be sued for rape, although he’s never been prosecuted. That information has nothing to do with the case I’m representing, and you can take it as more than gossip but less than judicial fact.”
As she stood to leave she glanced out his window, her hand already reaching for Eddie’s, and stopped.
“Mein Gott,” she exclaimed. Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes opened wide in fright and surprise.
Eddie swiveled in time to see a Range Rover jump the curb, glance off a newspaper kiosk, and crash explosively into the glass door of Robert Monteith’s store.
Shops selling expensive baubles had become more frequent targets for robbers in recent years, and in self-defense their insurers required them to tighten their security. Concrete-reinforced stone façades and small show windows had replaced broad plate glass displays, and doors were now remotely operated air locks of super-thick armored glass, wired so the outside and inside doors could never open at the same time. They were formidably hard targets, and this was not the first time a car had been used as a battering ram.
The impact sent heavy glass pieces showering across the sidewalk. By the time the last shard fell, Eddie had the police emergency operator on the line.
Four men in ski masks, each carrying a pistol or an Uzi, jumped out and dashed through the jagged opening where the door had been. Patrons of the sidewalk café next door abandoned their tables and fled. Shoppers scattered in panic. Eddie’s subconscious registered a portly woman dodging traffic to cross the street toward his building. Two boys ran away toward the Louvre.
“My client is in that store,” Lara whispered breathlessly.
Eddie began describing the scene to the police operator. As he watched, one of the robbers forced the staff toward the back of the store while the others smashed showcases and tossed watches and jewelry into pillowcases. Then, as quickly as they had arrived, they stepped back out of the ruined store, bringing with them a fifth man, his head covered by a yellow hood that looked like a gas mask, hands cuffed in front, staggering as he walked.
“That man—that’s my client. I recognize the brown suit.”
“What is his name?” Eddie asked. He told the police operator, “Wait a minute. The robbers are taking one of the customers with them, a man in a brown suit with a bag over his head. I think we have his name.” Eddie’s friendly businessman demeanor disappeared and the Special Forces commander appeared instantly in its place.
“Who is he?” Eddie demanded again, this time more insistently. “I saw him go in just a few minutes ago.”
“Igor Sokolov,” Lara said. “He lives on Île Saint-Louis.” Eddie repeated it to the police operator.
Eddie added, to the police dispatcher, “The hood looked like a commercial escape hood, bright yellow with a round filter on the front, with tape over the eyes.”
Lara said, “He went to buy a gift for a friend. I’m supposed to meet him there.”
“Was he at the court? Did he ask you to speak to Le Monde?”
“Yes,” she replied nervously.
The robbers picked their way around the ruins of the security door, roughly pulling the blind hostage by the handcuffs, the way a rancher would pull a bull by the ring in his nose. A second Range Rover climbed the curb to avoid the cars abandoned in the avenue, knocked down two bittes, the steel posts at the edge of the sidewalk, and stopped behind the wreck lodged in the ruins of the store’s armored doorway.
The robber guarding the captive lifted the rear door, pushed him in, and climbed in after him; two of the others were already in the car when a police car barreled toward them against traffic at high speed. The last robber started to sit down just as the car began to move, but when he saw the police car he got out and fired several quick shots at it. White stars appeared in its windshield and it lurched out of control, bounced off the bumper of a city bus, and smashed into the façade of Eddie’s building. Even three stories above he felt the shock of the impact through the solid cut limestone of the old building.
The shooter grabbed at his leg and fell to the sidewalk. He tried in vain to pull himself back into the car but his confederates screeched away, leaving him to his fate.
The Final Heist is part of the Eddie Grant Series of thrillers based in Paris and featuring Eddie Grant, a billionaire businessman who was a US Special Forces company commander in the First Gulf War. See the entire series at this link.
