“Sure,” she cut in. “And sometimes those rumors start for a reason. Most of the time, there’s no smoke without fire.”
Tom shook his head.
“What do you know about it? I’ll bet you’ve never even had a parking ticket.”
Just for a moment Jennifer contemplated revealing how wrong he was. But the thought vanished almost as quickly as it had occurred to her. Much better to keep things strictly professional between them.
“Tell me about this Fort Knox job, then,” Tom asked eventually. “What do you think happened?”
Taking a deep breath, Jennifer briefed Tom on her investigation so far. The murder of the Italian priest Ranieri, the discovery of the coin, the FBI’s theory about the break-in and Short’s involvement and subsequent murder. Tom listened intently, especially to the technical details of how the job had actually been pulled.
“They were pros, that’s for sure.” Tom nodded slowly when she had finished. “Looks like they had every angle covered.”
“You do think it’s possible, then? Breaking into Fort Knox in the way I’ve described?”
“If they had a guy on the inside, then it’s possible, sure.” Tom shrugged. “All it takes is one person to disable a security system or not check something that they should and you leave yourself wide open.”
“And the computer virus? You ever see that before?”
“More and more. The world’s moving from keys to computers. A virus like that is just a very sophisticated lock pick. That was the easy part. It was getting the container inside that took some real planning.”
“Yeah.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I guess so.”
“You don’t sound convinced,” Tom said with a smile. “What’s the matter? You don’t believe your own theory?”
“No, it’s not that, it’s just… well, it’s probably nothing, really, but something’s been bothering me the last couple of days. Something I didn’t really think about at the time.”
“What?” Curiosity in Tom’s voice now.
“You don’t think that discovering the murder and finding the container so quickly was all a bit… convenient? All a bit easy.”
Tom shrugged.
“Just because everything points to the same thing doesn’t necessarily make it convenient. It could just make it consistent.”
“Maybe.” She paused before continuing. “But then what I can’t figure out is why go to all the trouble of faking a suicide when you’ve already smashed the guy’s skull to pieces? I mean, an autopsy is standard for all suicides. Someone was bound to pick it up sooner or later.”
“Unless they figured that no one would realize the coins were gone until years later and so never link the two?”
“Sure, but it’s not just the suicide. If you really wanted to destroy a vital piece of evidence, would you throw it onto a fire at the back of the house of the person you’d just murdered?”
“Maybe they got disturbed. Maybe it was a mistake.”
“No, these people don’t make mistakes. The job was perfectly planned from beginning to end. You said so yourself.”
“Well, then.” Tom clasped his hands together. “The only other explanation is that the reason they left the container there is the same reason they made it obvious that it was a faked suicide.”
“Which was?” Jennifer asked, already knowing in her own heart what Tom’s answer would be and wishing that she had another.
“So someone like you would find it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
As they hit central Paris, they were soon immersed in the mid-afternoon traffic. Scooters and rollerbladers weaved randomly in and out of the cars and buses, which in turn fought their way through the steady waves of tourists washing over the road, seemingly oblivious to the traffic lights. Tom navigated them down to the quais where a stiff breeze chased them along the river bank.
Jennifer was struggling to concentrate on the road as the city scrolled past, her eyes shining at her first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, its skeletal frame soaring over distant rooftops. Tom took on the role of the dutiful tour guide by pointing out the sights as they streamed past — the Place de la Concorde, the Louvre, the Hôtel de Ville, Nôtre Dame — until they reached the Marais and Tom directed her to the symmetrical elegance of the Place des Vosges.
“What a beautiful square,” she breathed.
“It should be. It’s the oldest in Paris. It used to be called La Place Royale because Henry the Fourth built it so that he could live on one side and his wife on the other. But he never moved in. Some say it was a property scam, that he never had any intention of living here and just used his name to sell it at a huge profit.”
Jennifer gave a short laugh.
“I guess every age has its Van Simsons.”
Tom pointed at a space that had just opened up on the left-hand side of the square outside a café.
“Let’s park here. It’s only a few minutes’ walk.”
“Fine.”
“And I guess I’d better get changed.”
Jennifer parked and Tom quickly slipped on the shirt, suit, and shoes that had been left for him in the car. He was not surprised that they had got his sizes exactly right. He left the tie off.
“Don’t forget, you’re here as an observer,” Jennifer warned over her shoulder as she waited for him to finish dressing. “So just observe. I’ll do the talking.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” Tom shot back.
They walked down the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, the cars parked bumper to bumper, occasionally even mounting the curb to squeeze themselves in, before turning left down the Rue du Temple. Jennifer walked with long fluid strides, the material of her skirt stretching around her knees with every step and then loosening again.
The doors to Van Simson’s house soon loomed above them, a cliff of polished oak and brass. Unsurprisingly, they were bolted firmly shut and it took several minutes of leaning on the bell before the approaching sound of crunching gravel indicated that someone was in.
“Agent Browne?” A large man had opened the gate that was set into the left-hand door, his skin bleached, his hair white and thin. His eyes, unprotected by any natural pigmentation, glowed red and sore as he glanced at Tom questioningly. One of his hands was bent awkwardly behind his back as if tucked into his waistband, and Tom knew instantly that his fingers were almost certainly wrapped around a gun.
“Yes” — Jennifer stepped forward — “and an… associate of mine, Mr. Kirk. We’re here to see Mr. Van Simson. I believe we’re expected.”
“You, yes. Him, no,” The man looked accusingly in Tom’s direction. “Him, no.” Suddenly, he put his index finger against his right ear and nodded quickly. A clear plastic wire snaked from his ear, round the back of his head and into his collar.
“Mr. Van Simson will see you both,” he grunted, his Dutch accent clear. Taking a quick look up and down the street behind them, he opened the gate wide enough for them both to slip through into the courtyard before crashing it shut behind them.
“Please raise your arms,” said the man. He frisked Tom and then ran his hands over Jennifer, to her obvious discomfort. Seemingly satisfied, he nodded in the direction of the house.
They walked silently across the gravel, Tom noticing that two other men were watching them from an upstairs room, the barrel of what looked like a high-powered rifle poking its nose out of the window. Van Simson’s yellow Bentley was parked casually across the middle of the courtyard, the heavy skid marks in the gravel indicating that it had been thrown there at some speed.