John Grisham: Camino Island

“But if by chance he went on trial, there’s no way I would be called as a witness, right?”

All three were silent as Mercer waited. After a long, uncomfortable pause, she said, “Look, Elaine, you never mentioned anything about going to court, and you damned sure didn’t tell me I might have to testify against Cable. I won’t do it.”

Elaine tried to soothe her. “You won’t have to testify, Mercer, believe me. You’re doing a great job and we’re very proud of you.”

“Don’t patronize me, Elaine,” Mercer snapped, more harshly than she intended. No one spoke for a long time but the tension remained. They were on Interstate 95 going south and entering the sprawl of Jacksonville.

The U.S. Courthouse was a tall modern building with many levels and lots of glass. They were waved through a side entrance and parked in a small reserved lot. The FBI agents practically surrounded Mercer as if she needed protection. The elevator was crowded with her entourage. Minutes later they entered the offices of the U.S. Attorney, Middle District of Florida, and were directed to a conference room where the waiting began. Bradshaw and Vanno yanked out their cell phones and began muted conversations. Elaine was talking to Bethesda. Rick and Graham had important calls. Mercer sat alone at the massive table with no one to chat with.

After twenty minutes or so, an earnest young man in a dark suit — hell they all wore dark suits — entered with a purposeful air and introduced himself as Janeway, an Assistant U.S. Attorney of some variety. He explained to the crowd that the magistrate, a Judge Philby, was tied up in a life-or-death hearing, and, well, it might take some time. Janeway said he would like to cover Mercer’s testimony, if that was all right.

Mercer shrugged. Did she really have a choice?

Janeway left and returned with two other dark suits who offered their names. Mercer shook their hands. A real pleasure.

They whipped out legal pads and faced her across the table. Janeway began asking questions and it was immediately obvious he knew little about the case. Slowly, painfully, Mercer filled in the blanks.

At 4:50, Mercer, Bradshaw, and Vanno followed Janeway to the chambers of Magistrate Judge Arthur Philby, who greeted them as if they were trespassing. He’d had a rough day and seemed irritable. Mercer sat at one end of another long table next to a court reporter who asked her to raise her right hand and swear to tell the truth. A video camera on a tripod was aimed at the witness. Judge Philby, minus his black robe, sat at the other end like a king on his throne.

For an hour, Janeway and Bradshaw asked her questions, and she told the same story for at least the third time that day. Bradshaw produced large photos of the basement, the vault, and the safe inside. Philby interrupted repeatedly with his own questions, and much of her testimony was repeated more than twice. But she kept her cool, and was often amused by the thought that Bruce Cable was far more likeable than these guys, the good ones.

When she was finished, they wrapped things up and thanked her for her time and efforts. Don’t mention it, she almost said, I’m being paid to be here. She was excused and hurriedly left the building with Elaine, Rick, and Graham. When the federal building was finally behind them, Mercer asked, “So what happens next?”

Elaine said, “They’re preparing the search warrant now. Your testimony was perfect and the judge is convinced.”

“So, when do they attack the bookstore?”

“Soon.”

Denny had been on the island for ten days and was losing patience. He and Rooker had tracked Cable and knew his movements, a monotonously simple task. They had tracked Mercer too and knew her habits, another easy chore.

Intimidation had worked with Oscar Stein in Boston, and perhaps it was their only plausible tool. Direct confrontation with the threat of violence. As with Stein, Cable could not exactly run to the cops. If he had the manuscripts, he could be coerced into cutting a deal. If he didn’t, then he almost certainly knew where they were.

Cable usually left work around six in the evening and went home. At 5:50 Monday afternoon, Denny entered the store and pretended to browse around. As luck would have it, Cable’s luck that is, he was busy in the basement and his clerks knew not to divulge this.

Denny, though, had just run out of luck. After months of moving seamlessly through airports and customs and security checkpoints, and using fake IDs and passports and disguises, and paying cash when possible for rooms and rentals, he was thinking of himself as quite clever, if not invincible. But even the smartest cons get busted when they drop their guard.

For years the FBI had been perfecting its facial recognition technology, software it referred to as FacePrint. It used an algorithm to calculate the distance between a subject’s eyes, nose, and ears, and in milliseconds applied it to a bank of photos relevant to a particular investigation. In the “Gatsby File,” as the stolen manuscripts case had been nicknamed by the FBI, the bank was comparatively small. It included a dozen photos of the three thieves at the front desk of the Firestone Library, though Jerry Steengarden and Mark Driscoll were in custody. It also included several hundred photos of men known or suspected to be active in the world of stolen art, artifacts, and books.

When Denny entered the store, the camera hidden in the Lonesome Dove audio case captured his face, as it had routinely captured the face of every other customer since noon that day. The image was sent to the laptop in the rear of the van across the street, and, more important, to the FBI’s mammoth forensic lab at Quantico, Virginia. There was a match. An alarm alerted a technician. Within seconds of entering the store, Denny was identified as the third Gatsby thief.

Two had been caught. Trey, the fourth, was still decomposing at the bottom of a pond in the Poconos, never to be found nor implicated. Ahmed, the fifth, was still hiding in Europe.

After fifteen minutes, Denny left the store, walked around the corner, and got into a 2011 Honda Accord. The second van followed it at a distance, lost it, then found it parked in the lot of the Sea Breeze Motel, on the beach, a hundred yards from the Lighthouse Inn. A stakeout began.

The Honda Accord had been rented from an agency in Jacksonville that advertised “rent-a-wrecks” and didn’t mind dealing in cash. The name on the application was Wilbur Shifflet, and the manager admitted to the FBI that he thought the Maine driver’s license looked bogus. Shifflet had paid a thousand dollars cash for a two-week rental and waived the insurance.

The FBI was stunned at this development, at its incredible good fortune. But why would one of the thieves hang around the bookstore some eight months after the theft? Was he also watching Mercer? Did he have a connection to Cable? There were many baffling questions to be dealt with later, but at the moment it was a strong indication that Mercer was right. At least one of the manuscripts was in the basement.

At sunset, Denny stepped out of room 18 and Rooker stepped out of the room next door. They walked a hundred yards to the Surf, a popular outdoor bar and grill, where they dined on sandwiches and beer. While they were eating, four FBI agents walked into the office of the Sea Breeze and handed the manager a search warrant. In room 18, they found a gym bag under the bed. It contained a nine-millimeter pistol, six thousand dollars in cash, and fake driver’s licenses from Tennessee and Wyoming. Nothing, though, revealed Wilbur’s true identity. The agents found nothing of value in the room next door.