CHAPTER 4
Annabelle Conroy, tall, lean, and auburn-haired, was the newest, youngest, and only female member of the Camel Club. She was also a first-class con artist, though she had mostly retired from the field.
Mostly.
She had already reached all the other members, except for one.
Secret Service Agent Alex Ford had not answered his phone.
Reuben Rhodes, Caleb Shaw, and Harry Finn were already on their way to the mall in Georgetown.
Ten minutes later Annabelle was standing outside of the mall entrance waiting for them to arrive.
Reuben’s battered pickup truck screeched to a halt and he called out the window to her, “Any developments?”
She shook her head. Reuben eyed a car pulling out of a parking space on the street while a late-model Porsche convertible waited to pull in. Available parking spaces on the streets in Georgetown were unheard of and tended to be fiercely fought over.
Reuben timed it just right and slid into the parking spot before the Porsche could beat him there. The young man and his friend in the sports car immediately began yelling and cursing at him. The passenger jumped out and approached the truck. He was lean and buff and his hair was impressively tousled. He was dressed like a movie star trying to look hip. Everything he wore was expensive but tried desperately not to seem so.
With one look at him all Reuben wanted to do was knock him right into the waters of the nearby Potomac.
The guy stuck his face through the truck’s open window. “You took our space, asshole. Now move this pile of shit, old man.”
Reuben turned off his truck and stepped from the cab. At nearly six foot five and two hundred and seventy pounds he had the enormous size and breadth of shoulder of an NFL lineman. If he had had money he would have bought his clothes at the Big and Tall Men’s Shop, with the emphasis on big and tall.
He looked down at the far smaller young man, who had taken several steps backward when Reuben stepped from his truck. With a thick beard shot with gray and wild, tangled hair, Reuben looked more than a little unstable. And he could act crazy with the best of them.
Sometimes it wasn’t an act.
He grabbed the front of the man’s shirt and jerked him off his feet. “Do you think I’m too old to kick your ass?” he growled, his eyes boring into the younger man’s. “Because if you do, then I suggest you and your punk friend give it a try. I haven’t had the chance to shit-kick some pricks since Vietnam and I’m getting damn tired of waiting.”
The young guy was shaking hard as he took in the old army jacket that Reuben wore and then stared back at the wild eyes and the huge frame.
“We can find another space, dude.”
“Damn good idea. Because I’m busy right now.”
Reuben hurled him away and hurried down the block toward Annabelle.
When he reached her, Caleb Shaw was just getting out of a cab.
Caleb was in his fifties, paunchy, with gray hair and a trim beard. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and looked like a librarian, which he was. He worked in the Library of Congress’s Rare Book Reading Room. Although he was the most sedate and overtly timid member of the group, he had proved his mettle in action many times in the past.
Caleb said, “A bank robbery? In Georgetown?”
Annabelle said, “Oliver doesn’t think the target is in the bank. He thinks they’re going after something else using the bank as a launch point.”
“Well, that’s a bit odd.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” replied Annabelle. “But then odd is usually the only thing we get.”
A moment later Harry Finn came rushing up to them. In his thirties, lean and fit, Finn had first run into Oliver Stone because he’d wanted to kill him. Now Harry was one of Stone’s closes allies. He had a duffel bag over his shoulder.
“Nothing on the news,” he said. “No one must know yet.”
Reuben said, “So if not the bank what’s the target?”
Annabelle said, “There’s a jewelry store and fur place that the robbers might be able to access from the bank. At least that’s what Oliver said.”
Harry said, “Then we need to cover them both. But what about Oliver? Did he give you the lay of the land in there?”
“He’s one of ten hostages. Four bank employees and six customers. There are four robbers, heavily armed, and they put booby traps at the bank entrance in case someone tries to get to them that way.”
“Pretty well prepared,” said Reuben. “Doesn’t bode well.”
Annabelle nodded. “And he said they knew the bank’s protocols. The closing of the vault by a certain time and emails that had to go out to ensure the central office would believe nothing was wrong.”
Caleb said, “What can we do other than monitor the possible targets?”
“I tried to get a hold of Alex but he’s not answering.”
“Probably on an assignment,” said Reuben. “Otherwise he always answers.”
“But we don’t know for sure that the target is either the jewelers or the fur place,” said Harry. “That’s just speculation.”
Annabelle said, “And there’s something else. The robbers killed the security guard.”
“Which means they’ll have no compunction about killing anyone else,” said Caleb ominously.
Reuben said, “Well, we just have to make sure that doesn’t happen. But first things first. We need to cover the two potential targets. I’ll take the jewelers. Harry can take the fur place.”
“Are you armed?” asked Annabelle.
Reuben smiled. “You’re asking me that kind of a question?”
Harry said, “I have a pocket and there’s something in it. But what about the cops? The FBI? Shouldn’t we call them in?”
Annabelle shook her head. “Oliver said not to. The robbers may have a spotter out here. If a SWAT team comes barging in they’ll know it. And the robbers might start popping off hostages. We have to use stealth.” She looked at Caleb. “While Harry and Reuben cover the two possible targets, you and I have to figure out if there might be another place in the mall we’re missing.”
The four of them split up. Reuben and Harry entered the mall while Annabelle and Caleb went back to her car, where she snagged her laptop. They entered the mall and went to a coffee shop on the ground floor. Annabelle started clicking keys while Caleb accessed the Internet on his phone.
She said, “Search for anything having to do with this mall. See if you can get the building layout, what all is here, that sort of thing. I’m surfing the Web to see if anything pops.”
After thirty minutes Caleb looked up. “I’m not finding much. But there is a place in the garage that is blocked off. I can’t find anything on the Web to tell me what it is.”
“The garage?”
Caleb nodded.
“Forget the Web, let’s go see for ourselves.”