John Grisham: Camino Island

Noelle said something to the handyman and he disappeared. Bruce removed thick packing foam from the crate, and suddenly he and Noelle were staring at Mercer’s writing desk. Below its surface were the facings of three drawers that had been removed to create a hidden space. With a claw hammer, Bruce gently pried open the surface. Inside were five identical cedar boxes, all custom built to his specs by a cabinetmaker on Camino Island.

Gatsby and friends.

The meeting convened at 9:00 a.m. and gave every impression of becoming a marathon. The long table was covered with paperwork already scattered as if they had been working for hours. At the far end, a large screen had been set up, and next to it was a platter of doughnuts and two pots of coffee. Agent McGregor and three more FBI agents took one side. Carlton, the Assistant U.S. Attorney, took the other, flanked by his entourage of unsmiling young men in dark suits. At the other end, in the hot seat, sat Mark Driscoll, with his ever faithful lawyer, Petrocelli, at his left elbow.

Mark was already savoring delicious thoughts of life on the outside, of freedom in a new world. He was ready to talk.

McGregor went first and said, “Let’s start with the team. There were three on the inside, right?”

“That’s right. Me, Jerry Steengarden, and Denny Durban.”

“And the others?”

“Right, well, on the ground outside the library was Tim Maldanado, went by Trey. Not sure where he’s from because he’s lived most of his life on the run. His mother is a woman named Iris Green and she lives on Baxter Road in Muncie, Indiana. You can go see her but I doubt if she’s seen her boy in years. Trey escaped from a federal pen in Ohio about two years ago.”

“Why do you know where his mother lives?” McGregor asked.

“It was all part of the plan. We memorized a bunch of useless stuff to convince ourselves to remain silent in the event somebody got caught. The threat of retaliation, which sounded real smart back then.”

“And when did you last see Trey?”

“November 12 of last year, the day Jerry and I left the cabin and drove to Rochester. We left him there with Denny. I have no idea where he might be.”

On the screen, a mug shot appeared and Trey was smiling at them. “That’s him,” Mark said.

“And what was his role?”

“Diversion. He caused the commotion with his smoke bombs and fireworks. He called 911, said there was a guy with a gun shooting students. I made two or three calls myself, from inside the library.”

“Okay, we’ll get back to that. Who else was involved?”

“There were only five of us, and the fifth was Ahmed Mansour, an American of Lebanese descent who worked out of Buffalo. He was not on the scene that night. He’s a hacker, forger, computer expert. Long career with government intelligence before he got booted and turned to crime. He’s about fifty years old, divorced, lives with a woman at 662 Washburn Street in Buffalo. To my knowledge, he has no criminal record.”

Even though Mark was being filmed and recorded, all four FBI agents and all five grim-faced young men from the U.S. Attorney’s office scribbled furiously as if their notes were important.

McGregor said, “Okay, if there were only five, then who is this guy?” Bryan Bayer’s face appeared on the screen.

“Never seen him before.”

Petrocelli said, “That’s the guy who slapped me around in the parking lot a few weeks back. Warned me to tell my client to keep his mouth shut.”

McGregor said, “We caught him with Denny in Florida. A career thug, name of Bryan Bayer but went by Rooker.”

“Don’t know him,” Mark said. “He was not part of our team. Must be someone Denny picked up to look for the manuscripts.”

“We don’t know much about him and he’s not talking,” McGregor said.

“He was not a player,” Mark said.

“We’ll get back to the team. Tell us about the plan. How did it get started?”

Mark smiled, relaxed, took a long sip of coffee, and began his narrative.

Deep in the Left Bank of Paris, in the heart of the 6th arrondissement on Rue St.-Sulpice, Monsieur Gaston Chappelle ran a tidy little bookshop that had changed little in twenty-eight years. Such stores are scattered throughout the center of the city, each with a different specialty. Monsieur Chappelle’s was rare French, Spanish, and American novels of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Two doors down, a friend dealt only in ancient maps and atlases. Around the corner, another traded in old prints and letters written by historic figures. Generally, there was little foot traffic in and out of these stores; a lot of window-shopping but few customers. Their clients were serious collectors from around the world, not tourists looking for something to read.

On Monday, July 25, Monsieur Chappelle locked his shop at 11:00 a.m. and stepped into a waiting taxi. Twenty minutes later, it stopped in front of an office building on Avenue Montaigne, in the 8th arrondissement, and he got out. As he entered the building, he gave a cautious look at the street behind him, though he expected to see nothing unusual. There was nothing illegal about his mission, at least not under French law.

He spoke to the lovely receptionist and waited as she called upstairs. He shuffled about the lobby, admiring the art on the walls and taking in the breadth and reach of the law firm’s ambition. Scully & Pershing, announced the bold bronze lettering, with offices in, and he counted them, forty-four cities in every important country and a few lesser ones. He’d spent some time with its website and knew that Scully boasted of having three thousand lawyers and being the largest firm in the world.

Once his presence was approved, the receptionist cleared him to proceed to the third floor. He took the stairs and soon found the office of one Thomas Kendrick, a ranking partner chosen solely because of his undergraduate degree from Princeton. That was followed by two law degrees, first from Columbia and then from the Sorbonne. Mr. Kendrick was forty-eight years old, originally from Vermont but now with dual citizenship. He was married to a French lady and had never left Paris after the Sorbonne. He specialized in complex litigation of an international nature and, at least on the phone, had seemed reluctant to grant an appointment to a lowly bookshop owner. Monsieur Chappelle, though, had been persistent.

Speaking in French, they got through the rather stiff formalities and soon enough Mr. Kendrick said, “Now, what can I do for you?”

Monsieur replied, “You have close ties to Princeton University, having once served on its board of trustees. I assume you know its president, Dr. Carlisle.”

“Yes. I’m very involved with my school. May I ask why this is important?”

“It is very important. I have a friend who has an acquaintance who knows the man in possession of the Fitzgerald manuscripts. This man would like to return them to Princeton, for a price, of course.”

Kendrick’s professional, thousand-dollar-an-hour facade vanished as his jaw dropped slightly, his eyes bulged, and he looked as though he’d been kicked in the gut.

Chappelle continued, “I am just the intermediary, same as you. We need your assistance.”

The last thing Mr. Kendrick needed was another task, especially one that would pay him nothing and devour his valuable time. However, the appeal of getting involved in such a wonderfully unique transaction was almost overwhelming. If this guy could be believed, he, Kendrick, would play a vital role in bringing home a prize his beloved university treasured above all others. He cleared his throat and said, “The manuscripts are safe and still together, I take it.”