The Final Cut by Catherine Coulter
The instant Charlie set the chopper down on the road, Nicholas ripped off his headset and jumped out the door, Mike on his heels, her Glock at the ready.
Nicholas yelled before he reached her. “Where is the Koh-i-Noor, Dr. Browning?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her black hair blew back from her face, and Nicholas knew this gift horse wouldn’t neigh.
“Bloody hell. Who is this?”
Mike lowered her weapon. “I don’t know. But she’s definitely not Victoria Browning.”
34
Mike called over the roar of the helicopter rotors, “It’s the wrong cab. We’ve got the wrong cab.” She started toward the head of the tactical unit, but Nicholas grabbed her arm.
“No, it’s the same license plate. She duped us. Again. Well, bollocks.”
Mike whirled around and made a cutting motion across her neck. Charlie shut down the rotors, and they could hear each other again. The troopers shoved the woman into the backseat of a vehicle, the cabbie in a separate car.
Mike wanted to kick the helicopter skids. “How did she pull this off? Did she get out along the way? Trade places with this woman? Did she set it all up beforehand?”
Nicholas said, “Watch this.” He’d uploaded the video feed Savich sent to his tablet before they left the museum. He queued it up and hit play, froze the video on the figure getting into the cab. He pointed at the screen.
“Those are the clothes she was wearing when we arrived at the museum, without a doubt. The hair matches, and the height. But we never see her face, only a profile.” He gestured at the sobbing woman who was now sitting in the back of a state trooper’s vehicle.
“This is the same woman who got into the cab. But it’s not the Fox.”
Mike stared at the screen. “As you say, bollocks.”
Nicholas closed the tablet, smacked it with his fist. “Of course it wasn’t her. This is the Fox we’re talking about, one of the finest thieves in the world. She spent at least a year planning, probably more, with over nine months working at the museum. She had a proper escape plan, too. She’d never be this sloppy, and we should have known it. Let’s talk to the woman.”
Mike followed him to the trooper’s car. She flashed her creds. “Good job on the intercept. We’re ready to speak with her now.” The trooper nodded and stepped to the side. Mike leaned into the car.
“Step out here a moment, ma’am.”
The woman got out of the backseat awkwardly, her hands cuffed behind her back. She had long, dark hair, and looked a bit like Victoria, especially dressed in the same clothes. Enough to fool them all.
She was shaking, crying, and hiccupping, all at the same time. One look at Mike and her sobs gained new volume, and words spilled out, but all Nicholas could make out was paid me.
Mike spoke calmly and slowly. “You’re not under arrest, you’ll be okay. Stop crying, we need your help. I’m Special Agent Caine, FBI. Tell me your name?”
The woman hiccupped again and took several deep breaths. “I’m Tanya. Tanya Hill.”
Mike motioned for an officer to remove the cuffs. They watched Tanya Hill shake her hands, rub her wrists, hiccup a couple more times, then say, “I didn’t do anything.”
“What are you doing in this cab, coming to Tweed tonight?”
“I’m flying to Dallas. There was this call for actresses, and I answered. The lady hired me to put on these clothes, walk out of the Met. She told me to get a cab, ask to go to Tweed, and get on a plane to Dallas. She paid me fifteen hundred dollars, gave me an ID, an invitation to the gala, these really nice boots, everything.”
“Is the ID in your purse?”
“Yes, ma’am, Agent ma’am.”
A tactical team member handed Mike the purse. “It’s clear.”
Mike pulled out a black wallet from the green faux-crocodile clutch. Inside was an ID with the woman’s face on it, with the name and home address of Victoria Browning. Mike handed it to Nicholas.
Tanya Hill stared between the two of them, and another sob escaped. “I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t, and fifteen hundred dollars is a lot of money—I mean, I paid my rent from this one job. I won’t be able to keep the money, will I? Oh, man, I already gave it to my landlord. He’ll kick me out if I try to get it back.”
Nicholas said, “The money’s yours if you tell us all about the woman who hired you.”
Realizing the gulag wasn’t in her future, the tears dried up and Tanya became positively chatty.
“Like I said, there was a casting call for a reality TV show on Backonstage.com. It looked totally legit, I swear. I answered it last week, sent my book over, and she called me in and hired me on the spot. Said I was perfect. There’s no reality show, is there? She lied?”
“Yes, Miss Hill, she lied to you. Did she tell you why she wanted you to fly to Dallas?”
“No.”
“What were you supposed to do when you got there?”
“Stay overnight at a hotel near the airport, then fly home whenever I felt like it tomorrow. It was a no-brainer job.”
Mike looked at Nicholas, jerked her head toward the helicopter. They stepped away and she said in a low voice, “I’m thinking even if we take her back to the city, put her through another more thorough interrogation, she’s not going to have anything that will help us.”
“Agreed.”
Her cell phone rang, and she sighed. “It’s Zachery. I better tell him the bad news.” As she spoke to Zachery, Nicholas watched her face change from defeated to triumphant.
She hung up the phone and high-fived him. “They have an active trace on the call Victoria made to you after you defused the bomb. It pinged off a cell tower in Manhattan. Now they know the signal, and they’ll be able to trace it. And even better news. Louisa was treated and released, and Paulie’s awake.”
35
Mike whirled a finger above her head in a circle and called to the tac team, “Back in the chopper, back in the chopper. Charlie, fire her up. We need to get back into the city pronto.”
She turned to the troopers. “Give Miss Hill a ride home, get her phone number and tell her we may want to speak to her again.” Mike said, “I’m being a dreamer here, but tell her if she thinks of anything else about the woman who hired her to give me a call. Oh, yes, the cabbie helped us, so cut him loose and thank him.” Mike pulled a fifty out of her wallet and gave it to the trooper. “He’s a good guy. I hope it’s enough.”
When she took her seat next to Nicholas in the chopper she said, “Zachery wants us to stop off and talk to Paulie, see if he can tell us anything about what happened before she knocked him out. Charlie, can you get us to Lenox Hill Hospital, ASAP?”
“Will do, Mike.”
The chopper whirled into the air and, nose down, flew south toward the city.
“Zachery and Bo talked to Louisa, but she didn’t have anything for them. They held a press conference—Bo said it’s insanity, what with the evacuation, the bomb threat, and the Koh-i-Noor missing. That tidbit was announced by the director of the Met himself. It’s now all over TV and the Internet, going viral as we speak. I hate this level of visibility. Right now the only thing we have to go on is the call she made to your cell phone.”
Nicholas was tapping his fingers on his leg. “The last thing I’m going to do now is get excited about tracing the call she made to me in the exhibit room.”
“She probably knows how long it takes to get a trace on a wireless signal, so why would she care? Little does she know I have super-agent Gray Wharton on our side, and he has a still-friends ex-girlfriend who’s an NSA analyst. She’ll rush it right through, and we’ll be able to track the phone.”
“Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t, but she knows we’ll trace the call. She wouldn’t keep the bloody phone.” His voice fell off, and he looked out the chopp
“We’ll see.”
Ten minutes later, Charlie set down on the rooftop helipad of Lenox Hill Hospital. They were met by a nurse in blue scrubs who took them directly to the third floor. They entered the single room to see Paulie flat on his back, arguing with a pixie-haired nurse.
When he saw them, he looked ready to sing hallelujah. “Mike, you’re here at last! Rescue me. Tell her I’m fine. I’ve been hit on the head before; my brother used to thump me all the time when we were kids. I need to get out of here, we’ve got work to do. Zachery told me about Victoria. I want to help. There will be tons of evidence to gather.”
The nurse didn’t spare them a glance. “I’ve told you three times, Agent Jernigan, we have to wait for the doctor. And no matter what you say, he’s already told me you can’t be released until the morning. Trust me, you won’t get out of here sooner. You have a pretty bad concussion from that whack on your head, and we’re waiting for blood work to determine what chemical you were exposed to.”
Paulie frowned at her. “Bunch of vampires. You must have taken ten quarts from me.”
Mike stifled a laugh behind a cough.
The nurse patted Paulie’s shoulder. “That’s right, dear. We are vampires and we live to draw blood. So lie back and relax. I’ve given you a little something to help with the headache, and you’re going to feel so good in a minute you’ll think I’m a fairy princess, not a vampire.”
She patted Paulie’s shoulder again and said to Mike, “I have to go do rounds. Would you sit on him if he tries to get out of bed?”
“Absolutely. Difficult patients are my specialty.”
Mike turned to Paulie, whose face was pale despite his bravado. “Hear her? I’ll sit on you if you don’t throttle down. You should see yourself with that big bandage on your head. You can’t go out looking like that, children will run screaming. So stop squirming and get comfy.”
“Eight stitches, Mike, that’s all. Only a scratch. Wow, what did she put in my IV? I feel like I’m floating. Is everyone all right? I remember Louisa telling me it was a good thing she was a woman, her head is harder than mine.”
Mike sat next to his bed. “Everyone’s okay. We haven’t much time, Paulie, before you go squirrelly, so tell us what happened.”
“Victoria was talking about the curse, told me to be very careful because only women are supposed to handle the diamond. I’d finally released it from the setting and was turning to hand it to Louisa, and Victoria said, ‘Sorry about this,’ and sprayed something in my eyes. Before I could even start yelling for anyone, wham, I was down. I don’t remember much after I hit the ground, outside of hearing the alarms. I’m sorry, Mike.” His voice was getting thready, and she could tell he was trying hard to hang on. His head swung back against the pillow. “Ouch.”
“Careful. Do you remember anything else?”
He shook his head.
“I’m mad, Paulie, really mad. If we don’t find her and get back the Koh-i-Noor, the Brits will declare war and take the White House again. Don’t fade out on me, think. Anything else?”
The drugs were working their magic. Paulie’s lids were heavy. He blinked a few times and his eyes closed.
Mike caught Nicholas’s eye and nodded toward the door.
Paulie’s eyes flew open and he sat straight up. “I remember now. She was talking to herself.”
He fell back, a hand to his head. “Ugh, that hurts. I was going in and out, but I know she said something like ‘Noon at the ark.’”
Mike said, “The ark? Like, Noah’s ark?”
“That’s what it sounded like. It’s all I remember, Mike. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, it’s wonderful information. We’ll track it down. Agent Savich is recovering all the video she erased, so maybe we can get more context. You rest now, okay? I’ll be back to get you in the morning.”
Nicholas’s dark eyes met hers as they rode the elevator down. “Noon. As in noon tomorrow? That would give us less than twelve hours to catch up to her. It’s going to take longer than that to get to Mount Ararat.”
She smiled. “I have faith in Savich. He’s a magician, he’ll figure it out.” She got on her cell as they left the hospital and called Zachery. “Sir, we really need Savich to lift the audio from the feed during Browning’s attack. Paulie heard Browning say something about noon at the ark after she hit him.”
36
New York, New York
250 West 50th Street, Apartment 2324
Archstone Midtown West
Friday, after midnight
Mike and Nicholas went with lights and sirens across town to the home address on file for Victoria Browning. The light snow had stopped, and the city looked frosted, park benches and wrought-iron railings silvered in the moonlight.
The streets were slick and nearly empty, and Mike was doing her best not to crash the car as she hurried around the south end of Central Park, then shot down Broadway toward the theater district. Usually jammed with people at all hours, tonight most everyone in Midtown was tucked up in bed, and the trip was going quickly.
Nicholas said, “You’re frowning. What’s wrong?”
She shot him a look. “I was thinking about what my father would do in this situation. He’s the chief of police of Omaha, Nebraska, that’s a state in the Midwest—”
“Thank you, they did teach American geography at Eton. And what would your dad have to say?”
“He always told me to check out the stripes first, even if I was sure it was a zebra.” She swung around a lone cab with one guy in the back who looked passed out.
“And what have you decided? Is the Fox really a zebra?”
“Not so far. She’s anything but, given all the twists and turns she’s tossed in our path. I’m hoping her apartment will tell us a lot about her.” She stopped at a red light, watched a bundled-up bag lady push her grocery cart piled high with stuff across the street. “I hope she’s got a warm place. The temperature’s plummeting.”
Unlike Nicholas, who felt like he was in a canyon, black monoliths on either side of them, the old woman looked like she knew exactly where she was going. He said, “It’s eerie, seeing the city sleep like this, all hunkered down, looming. London rarely gets quiet, but then again, London isn’t this overwhelming, so in-your-face.”
She said, “It’s after midnight and it’s snowing. If you’re sane, you’re inside. I’ve always thought that in the deep of night, the city knows something we don’t know, and always, bad things happen.”
Her cell rang. “It’s Ben.” She put him on speaker so Nicholas could hear.
Ben said, as if in mid-thought, “We’re FBI, the most suspicious people in the world, and the most cynical, so tell me, why did we take her at face value? Browning raised the alarm, claimed the stone was fake, and we all believed her. We didn’t even check to make sure she was telling the truth. Makes us look like idiots.”
Mike knew exactly how he felt. “Well, Bo did check. Victoria used a fake diamond tester, so even he was tricked. So why wouldn’t we believe her? She reported a major robbery. She had the credentials, the trust of the museum staff. She engineered the whole thing to get Paulie and Louise into the room to fingerprint the ‘fake’ diamond. It was a pretty ballsy plan, and it worked. Yeah, we’re idiots.”
“Sorry, I had to vent. What are you up to at this late hour?”
“Nicholas and I are on our way to tear apart Browning’s apartment.”
“Be careful, Mike. This woman is no dummy, she’s got more end-arounds than Harbaugh’s playbook. She’s not predictable, so watch your back.”
She hung up and looked over at Nicholas.
He said, “I wonder which Harbaugh he meant.”
“You know American football?”
“I am half your species,” he said.
Victoria lived steps from Times Square, in a building Mike had to admit was gorgeous, inside and out. They’d called the leasing agent, a round and Rubensesque woman in her late forties who smelled strongly of red wine, and she met them in the lobby.
“I’m Special Agent Mike Caine, and this is Detective Chief Inspector Nicholas Drummond. Thanks for meeting us so late.” She showed the woman her creds.
“I’m Gillian Docherty. What is all this about?”
Nicholas said, “We need access to an apartment, number 2324, and all the files you have attached to it. The occupant is Victoria Browning.”
Docherty narrowed her eyes. “Um, I don’t think I’m allowed to give out that information unless you have a warrant.”
“We’re very concerned about Ms. Browning’s well-being. We wouldn’t ask if it weren’t a matter of life and death.”
“You mean Dr. Browning. She insisted I remember to call her Doctor. I was the one who leased her the apartment. What’s wrong? Is she ill? Is she in trouble?”
Nicholas leaned close to the leasing agent, pitched his voice low. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. This is a very sticky situation. Be a love and let us in her flat, would you?”
Docherty dimpled, and Mike would swear she batted her eyelashes. “Oh, I see, yes, of course,” and Docherty went for the master keys.
Bond strikes again. She whispered, “I may need a tape recording of your voice to use when I run into stubborn witnesses. Well, female witnesses.”
He ignored that.
“You lied to her.”
“Yeah, but don’t worry I’ll run off the rails. I have all sorts of highly ethical boundaries. If she’d said no, I would have clubbed her on the head and stolen the keys.”
Mike said, “Now, that would be a show worth watching.”