John Grisham: Camino Island

Meanwhile, her boyfriend sipped beer and read The Great Gatsby in a hammock on the rear porch, with the beautiful pond just a few feet away. Mark and Trey were out there in a boat, quietly fishing for bream, while Denny tended to the steaks on the grill. At sunset, a cold wind arrived and the four hunters gathered in the den, where a fire was crackling away. At precisely 8:00 p.m., they pulled out their new Sat-Traks and punched in their codes, everybody pecked in the word “Clear,” including Ahmed in Buffalo, and life was secure.

Life was indeed good. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, they were on the campus, hiding in the dark, nervous as hell but also loving the thrill of the chase. Their plan had worked to perfection, they had the priceless manuscripts, and soon they would have the cash. That transfer would not be easy, but they would deal with it later.

The booze helped but sleep was difficult, for all four of them. Early the following morning, as Denny cooked eggs and bacon and guzzled black coffee, Mark sat at the counter with a laptop, scanning headlines from up and down the East Coast. “Nothing,” he said. “Plenty of stuff about the ruckus on campus, now officially labeled as a prank, but not a word about the manuscripts.”

“I’m sure they’re trying to keep it quiet,” Denny said.

“Yes, but for how long?”

“Not long at all. You can’t keep the press away from a story like this. There’ll be a leak today or tomorrow.”

“Can’t decide if that’s good or bad.”

“Neither.”

Trey walked into the kitchen, with a freshly shaved head. He rubbed it proudly and said, “What do you think?”

“Gorgeous,” said Mark.

“Nothing helps,” said Denny.

None of the four looked the same as they had twenty-four hours earlier. Trey and Mark had shaved everything — beard, hair, eyebrows. Denny and Jerry had lost their beards but changed hair colors. Denny had gone from sandy blond to dark brown. Jerry was a soft ginger. All four would be wearing caps and glasses that changed daily. They knew they had been captured on video and they knew about the FBI’s facial recognition technology and its capabilities. They had made mistakes, but their efforts to remember them were rapidly diminishing. It was time to get on with the next phase.

There was also a cockiness that was the natural aftereffect of such a perfect crime. They had first met a year earlier, when Trey and Jerry, the two felons and the most experienced, had been introduced to Denny, who knew Mark, who knew Ahmed. They had spent hours planning and plotting, arguing about who would do what, and when was the best time, and where would they go afterward. A hundred details, some huge, some tiny, but all crucial. Now that the heist was over, all that was history. Before them now lay only the task of collecting the money.

At 8:00 a.m. Thursday, they watched each other go through the Sat-Trak ritual. Ahmed was alive and well. All present and accounted for. Jerry and Mark said good-bye and drove away from the cabin, away from the Poconos, and four hours later entered the outskirts of Rochester. They had no way of knowing the sheer number of FBI agents patiently waiting and watching for the 2010 Toyota pickup truck leased three months earlier. When Jerry parked it near his apartment, hidden cameras zoomed in on him and Mark as they nonchalantly walked across the parking lot and climbed the stairs to the third floor.

The digital photos were instantly streamed to the FBI lab in Trenton. By the time Jerry kissed Carole hello the photos had been matched to the frozen shots taken from the Princeton library surveillance videos. The FBI’s imaging technology nailed Jerry, or Mr. Gerald A. Steengarden, and it verified the identity of Mark as the imposter who borrowed the name of Professor Neville Manchin. Since Mark had no criminal record, he had no data in the national crime network. The FBI knew he was in the library; they just didn’t know his name.

But it wouldn’t take long.

The decision was made to watch and wait. Jerry had already delivered Mark; perhaps he could give them another one. After lunch, the two left the apartment and returned to the Toyota. Mark was carrying a cheap maroon nylon gym bag. Jerry was carrying nothing. They headed downtown and Jerry drove at a leisurely pace, careful to obey all traffic laws and steer clear of any policemen.

They were watching everything. Every car, every face, every old man sitting on a park bench hiding behind a newspaper. They were certain they were not being followed, but in their business one never rested. They could neither see nor hear the helicopter hovering benignly in the distance, following them three thousand feet in the air.

At the Amtrak station, Mark got out of the truck without a word, grabbed his bag from the back, and hustled along the sidewalk to the entrance. Inside, he bought an economy ticket for the 2:13 train to Penn Station in Manhattan. As he waited, he read an old paperback edition of The Last Tycoon . He was not much of a reader but was suddenly obsessing over Fitzgerald. He suppressed a grin when he thought of the handwritten manuscript and where it was now hidden.

Jerry stopped at a liquor store for a bottle of vodka. As he left the store, three rather large young men in dark suits stepped in front of him, said hello, flashed their badges, and said they’d like to talk. Jerry said no thanks. He had things to do. So did they. One produced some handcuffs, another took the vodka, and the third went through his pockets and removed his wallet, keys, and Sat-Trak. Jerry was escorted to a long black Suburban and driven to the city jail less than four blocks away. During the short drive, no one said a word. He was placed in an empty cell, again without a word. He didn’t ask; they didn’t offer. When a city jailer stopped by to say hello, Jerry said, “Say, man, any idea what’s going on here?”

The jailer looked up and down the hall, leaned closer to the bars, and said, “Don’t know, pal, but you have sure pissed off the big boys.” As Jerry stretched out on the bunk in the dark cell, he stared at the dirty ceiling and asked himself if this was really happening. How in hell? What went wrong?

As the room spun around him, Carole answered the front door and was greeted by half a dozen agents. One produced a search warrant. One told her to leave the apartment and go sit in her car but not to start the engine.

Mark boarded the train at 2:00 and took a seat. The doors closed at 2:13, but the train didn’t move. At 2:30, the doors opened and two men in matching navy trench coats stepped on board and looked sternly at him. At that awful moment, Mark knew things were deteriorating.

They quietly identified themselves and asked him to step off the train. One led him by the elbow while the other grabbed his bag from the overhead rack. Driving to the jail, they said nothing. Bored with silence, Mark asked, “So, fellas, am I under arrest?”

Without turning around, the driver said, “We don’t normally put handcuffs on random civilians.”

“Okay. And what am I being arrested for?”

“They’ll explain things at the jail.”

“I thought you boys had to name the charges when you read me my rights.”

“You’re not much of a criminal, are you? We don’t have to read you your rights until we start asking questions. Right now we’re just trying to enjoy some peace and quiet.”

Mark clammed up and watched the traffic. He assumed they had nabbed Jerry; otherwise they would not have known he, Mark, was at the train station. Was it possible they had grabbed Jerry and he was already spilling his guts and cutting deals? Surely not.