Джеймс Паттерсон - The 19th Christmas

Jacobi said to Lambert, “Be smart. Speak now, or we’ll hold you as a material witness. We don’t mind keeping you while we file additional charges. Obstruction of justice comes to mind.”

Lambert appeared startled. He said, “Look, I can’t verify this.”

The door opened and two guards came into the room.

“Hang on a minute,” Jacobi said to the guards. Then, to Lambert, “We’re listening.”

“What I heard was they were going to hit the mint.”

“The San Francisco Mint? Who told you that?” I asked.

He shook his head—no, no, no.

“Give me a name.”

“Marcus, okay? That’s all I know about him. Calls himself Marcus, no known address. He’s harmless, so try not to kill him, all right?”

“What else?” I said. “Anything about a hit on a museum? Any targeted political figures?”

“No,” said Lambert. “Marcus said the mint.”

I didn’t think an army could get into the mint. The gray stone structure located on Hermann Street in the Lower Haight was completely closed to the public. Currency was no longer produced there, but the mint did strike commemoratives, special coins, and sets—it was a highly fortified fort full of gold and silver bars.

“Don’t use my name,” Lambert pleaded. “Keep my name out of this.”

Jacobi and I left Lambert with the guards and took the elevator down to the squad room.

I said to Jacobi, “Could this be true? The mint is impenetrable. Guns and ski masks won’t cut it. What’s your bullshit detector tell you?”

Jacobi said, “That it’s time to call the Secret Service.”

Part Three December 23

Chapter 23

Julian Lambert left the jail in the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street with his backpack over his shoulder and wearing the red down jacket and dirty clothes he’d had on when he was arrested.

He’d felt like a vagrant in court, but the cops had made good on their promise. The ADA had said, “We’re withdrawing the charges, Your Honor.”

He was freed into a blustery morning. He walked northwest into a high, damp wind, trying to shake off the feeling of cuffs and bars, the omnipresent glare of fluorescent lights and psychopathic guards, the echoing shouts of prisoners.

He’d spent only two nights in a cell, but it felt like a year. And now the rest of his life was ahead of him.

With the wind blowing his hair around, Lambert adjusted his backpack and headed toward Victoria Manalo Draves Park, thinking of the job to come. He was sure that it would be a well-oiled process, and just as with a spy cell, he wouldn’t know the others on the team and they wouldn’t know him.

When the job was done, Loman would give him a passport, a new name and address, and a flush bank account in a city with a coastline. That was the deal. He was thinking he just might have some work done. Lose the bags under his eyes, shave down the nose. There was nothing he would miss about San Francisco, USA.

He had just crossed Columbia Square when a car horn honked behind him. He turned and watched as the blue Ford sedan pulled alongside him and slowed to a stop.

The car had one occupant, the driver, who buzzed down the passenger-side window and called out to him. “Lambert, right?”

Lambert walked over to the car and peered in. “And you are?”

“Dick Russell. Loman’s man.”

Lambert said, “I thought Loman was coming.”

“He wants to have lunch with you,” said Russell. “Get in.” Lambert got into the passenger seat and closed the door, and the car took off.

Loman’s man looked nothing like a criminal. He wore old-man clothes, a cap with a button-snap brim, a khaki Windbreaker, and perforated leather driving gloves. His face was unlined and ink-free, and he was carrying a spare tire around his waist. To Lambert’s eyes, Russell looked like an accountant.

“Lunch, huh?” Lambert said. “Mind driving by my crib so I can change? I’d rather not smell this bad, you know?”

Russell said, “We don’t have time, and besides, it’s not necessary. Loman is very impressed. Tell me how you got yourself arrested, if you don’t mind.”

Lambert relaxed. A light rain pattered on the windshield, and the wiper blades smoothed it away. He was thrilled to be able to tell the story to someone, and Dick Russell was a very eager audience.

Lambert began, “It was Mr. Loman’s inspiration.”

Then he gave Russell the play-by-play, how he’d planned his moves as he ran, knocking down the old man and grabbing the bag, feinting, dodging, slowing so the cop could lunge and catch him.

Russell cracked up at the punch lines, then asked him what happened once the cops had him in the box.

Lambert told him about giving up Dietz as instructed. “The cops just told me about Dietz getting killed. Did you know?”

Russell nodded, slowed for the light on Howard Street. “I heard. Did you know he had cancer?”

“No. I didn’t know him very well.”

“It was sad. Terminal. In his brain. Dietz didn’t want to die in a cell with his mind turning to mush, so he decided to go out in a blaze of glory.”

“No shit.”

Russell continued, explaining that Dietz’s cut of the take was going to his daughter in Newark. “We’re funneling the money into her bank account.”

“Nice,” said Lambert. “The cops bit on the map of the park Dietz left on his phone—I take it that was part of the plan?”

“Absolutely,” said Russell. “So, Julian, where did you leave things with the cops?”

Lambert told Loman’s man the whole story of the second interrogation—the threats, the pressure, how the two major-league cops finally dragged “the truth” out of him.

Lambert said, “I told them I heard Loman’s crew was going to hit the mint.”

“You’re kidding,” Russell said, turning to grin at Lambert. “That’s brilliant. Protecting the mint will drain their resources. What made you think of that?”

Lambert was laughing now, enjoying the ride and the company. He said, “I always wanted to hit the mint. Must be pallets of gold bars and vaults full of coins in there. I’m a pretty good safecracker. But wait—that isn’t the target, is it?” he asked. “I didn’t accidentally give it away?”

Russell said, “Not at all. Make sure to tell Loman all about this; he’s going to love it. He’ll be meeting us in about five minutes. He’s never late.”

Chapter 24

There was a lull in the conversation between Lambert and Russell as Russell negotiated the traffic in the rain, looking at his watch every few minutes. Lambert didn’t want to interrupt Russell’s thoughts, so he tuned in to his own.

He thought again about Dietz. He didn’t know much about the guy, but he’d gleaned that Dietz was a sports fisherman, owned a boat called the Mai Tai he talked about a lot, and had a seventeen-year-old daughter named Debbie. When he’d known Dietz, he hadn’t yet been diagnosed with cancer. Shit. He’d been only about forty.

Lambert tried to picture what the cops had told him about Dietz firing on armed SWAT like he wanted to die. They didn’t know that Dietz and Loman had planned this “blaze of glory” in exchange for a payout to Dietz’s daughter. Generous of Loman to spring for it. But then, Dietz had come through for Loman even in death.

Lambert appreciated Loman’s game plan, throwing down fake clues like spike strips in the path of the police, distracting them from the real plan and, at the same time, scaring the citizens with random chaotic events. It took tremendous skill and confidence to do that.

Lambert’s own strength was that he was a complete athlete, almost a player-coach. The coach had foresight; he could diagram plays and knew when to call them. The player saw the whole field, anticipated events and knew what to do in the moment. His movements were quick and instinctive. He executed.