Green Ice (39 page)

That made no difference.

Possibly they had selected the wrong key words. They had settled on his name because it was the only thing they both remembered him saying those separate times when the vault doors had opened. It seemed to stand out, but they could have been wrong.

“Play the whole tape,” Wiley told Lillian.

She did. Nothing on the tape had any effect.

That left only one possibility.

Lillian got the photographs from her pack. They were eleven-by-fourteen-inch black-and-white enlargements of Argenti. Front view head shots, life-size, ten and a half inches from chin to top of head. Argenti’s beard and full crop of hair had made it difficult to determine exactly where his chin and top were. Using the motorized Nikon camera, with its ability to take five exposures per second, Wiley had been able to get a series of Argenti saying his full name.

Lillian stood on that same spot facing the wall and held up one of the photographs.

Wiley and Miguel shined their flashlights on it.

Wiley had also speculated that the perforations on the wall might serve as an electronic unit, much like an ordinary television camera. Argenti’s image would be received and relayed into a computer. The computer would be programmed exclusively for Argenti’s features. His various shadings and shapes would be scanned. The total resolution of Argenti’s face would be the only thing acceptable to the computer, which, when satisfied, would activate the vault to unlock.

It didn’t.

Lillian tried another photograph. Then each of the photographs in the series.

The wall remained intact.

Maybe the photographs should have been in color. Or could be what was missing was a mere wink from Argenti.

Wiley had been wrong.

Argenti still had him outsmarted.

“What now?” Lillian asked.

Wiley hated to say it. “Unless you or Miguel have any bright ideas, we try to go home.” He was disgusted with himself. Realized now how sure he’d been. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone this far, jumped out of a plane at night over Bogotá. Shit. All Argenti had suffered was a broken window.

He lighted a cigarette. The first in over two hours. His nicotine craving had been nullified by anxiety. Now the cigarette didn’t taste good, or maybe it was the bad taste of failure.

Anyway, how
did
that goddamn vault unlock?

He berated himself with a closed-mouth scoff.

Okay, electronic smartass, if not acoustically
or
visually, how?

It was probably something simple, but he couldn’t come up with it. He could hardly think beyond his acoustical and visual theories. His mind had become too set on acoustical or visual …

… or.

“Let’s try one more thing,” he said.

Lillian resumed her position seven feet from the wall. She held up one of the photographs.

At the same time Wiley played the tape.

Acoustical and visual combined.

That didn’t work either.

But Wiley had the feeling he was onto something.

There were five photographs, taken in a series when Argenti was saying his name. Wiley and Lillian hadn’t thought to number or in any way note their sequence. They tried to determine that now. The only thing they had to go on was Argenti’s mouth, which was hidden completely by his beard in one photograph and only barely visible in two.

When they believed they had the photographs in correct order, Lillian stood on that spot facing the wall.

She held up four of the photographs, her fingers separating them. She couldn’t handle five, so Wiley held up one photograph, the first in the sequence.

Miguel kept his flashlight shining on them.

The tape recorder was adjusted to allow some lead time. They had to wait for it to say “Meno Sebastiano Argenti.”

Simultaneously, Wiley pulled away the photograph he was holding, revealing the next held by Lillian, who released and showed the photographs one after another in sequence.

The object was to synchronize the motion with the words. The photographs were printed on heavy enough paper so they dropped away swiftly when Lillian’s fingers let them go. Also, their slick finishes helped if they happened to touch.

The problem was being able to do it smoothly within two seconds.

Wiley frequently missed his cue.

Lillian was either too slow or too quick or she fumbled.

It seemed they would never be able to do it.

They tried again and again until their arms were tired and their backs ached from retrieving the photographs from the floor.

They took a break.

“Do you think this will work?” Lillian asked.

“No,” Wiley said.

Nevertheless, they went back to it.

The interruption must have been beneficial. Now it was easier. Lillian seemed recharged with dexterity. There was a flow to the way the photographs fell away, a rhythm that matched the cadence of Argenti’s voice. A perfect timing with the emphasis Argenti placed on certain syllables.

“Me-no …”

“… Se-bas-tian-o …”

“… Ar-gen-ti …”

The part of the wall that was the vault door slid open so quickly it seemed to dissolve.

They were stunned, didn’t react immediately to the bright lights that had gone on inside the vault when it opened. Six inset spots. The lights reflected off the white interior of the vault and out into the main room.

If anyone down on the street, especially a Conduct Section man, should look up and notice the vault room lighted …

Lillian took care of the lights in the most expedient way. With the silencer on, her Llama automatic seemed to spit the lights out.

Inside the vault, Wiley pulled open one of the many shallow drawers of a cabinet. He played his flashlight on its contents.

Uncut emeralds, a crowded layer of them. They glowed green.

Fifty to sixty million dollars’ worth in this vault, Argenti had said. Wiley also remembered the urge he’d had the last time he was there to help himself to a handful of wealth.

Now he could.

But first they should open the other vault, while they were in form.

It took them only three tries with the photographs and the tape before the wall of the second vault slid aside.

Lillian again shot out the lights.

It occurred to Wiley that in an oblique way Argenti had opened the vaults for them. At least he had been a big help.

Lillian got the black nylon duffel bags from her pack.

They went to work. Miguel in the first vault, Lillian and Wiley in the second. The second, larger vault contained more cabinets, more shallow white velour-lined drawers, more emeralds. A hundred and fifty million dollars’ worth, according to Argenti. The emeralds in the first vault had glowed, these blazed. They were better quality. They clicked stone against stone as they were loaded into the duffel bags.

Wiley and Lillian got the loading down to a method.

Not to overlook a drawer, they worked on a cabinet from the bottom up.

A drawer was pulled open. Using the heels of their hands they swept the emeralds into a pile at the front of the drawer. Then they scooped the emeralds up in double handfuls and dropped them into the duffel bag.

It took nearly an hour and a half to empty every drawer in both vaults.

They had about two hundred thousand carats.

Eighty-some pounds of emeralds.

Worth about two hundred million dollars.

They sat on the floor for a rest, their backs against the wall opposite the vaults.

Wiley lighted a cigarette.

It tasted great.

How do you like your tricky vaults now, Meno Sebastiano Argenti? Your
empty
tricky vaults.

Wiley had a laugh in his gut. He let a little of it out. Stop snickering, he told himself, you’re not out of this yet.

Lillian offered him a carrot stick. She had brought some in her sack. Also some celery and unroasted cashews.

Miguel had brought along some whiskey in a small canteen.

Wiley took a swig, chased it with the cigarette and then munched on the carrot so his mouth was fresh for the next drag.

Across the way in the dim light the two open vaults were darker rectangles. They took up only two thirds of the wall, Wiley noticed.

Merely curious, he got up and went over to where the wall was intact. He beamed his flashlight on it, searched close up.

There they were.

The same sort of minuscule perforations.

What were these for?

Would whatever device that was behind them respond to the photographs-and-tape routine?

Miguel was for leaving well enough alone. They had the emeralds, why risk messing with this? It might set off an alarm.

Lillian, however, was as curious as Wiley.

They played the tape and exposed the photographs to the perforations on the wall.

That section of the wall slid aside.

It was another vault.

Smaller than the second but containing the same type of white metal cabinets.

Wiley pulled open the top drawer of the nearest cabinet.

Like a layer of green-hot coals.

Emeralds.

Not rough. These were cut, faceted, polished. There must have been five hundred stones in this one drawer. They were cut in the traditional emerald fashion: an oblong table facet (face) with a crown (upper edges) of eight sections, two or three steps to each section. They were of various sizes, from about two to twelve carats.

There were more cut emeralds in the next drawer, and the next.

Wiley was awestruck.

If Van Cleef, Tiffany, Cartier, Winston and Bulgari pooled, they wouldn’t come even close.

Other cabinets contained stones not yet cut. Wiley immediately recognized the difference in this rough. It was better quality, the finest grade, practically pure kelly.

Tucked in the front corner of one top drawer was a square of fluffy cotton. With something protected in it, Wiley discovered. Two somethings. Cut emeralds of approximately twenty carats each. They were brilliant cut, that is, round in shape. Emeralds were rarely cut in this fashion. Partly because their hexagonal formation facilitated the square cut, but also because emeralds, by nature, were not hard enough, too flawed, to withstand the stress. A normal first-quality emerald of any important size would more than likely crumble in the cutter’s fingers if he tried to cleave and grind and polish so intricately.

But here was the exception.

A matched pair of exceptions.

With fifty-eight facets to catch and throw light they were obviously more scintillating, livelier, these two.

Wiley thought they were too special to drop into the duffel bag with the rest. He slipped them into his shirt pocket.

They emptied all the drawers in that unexpected vault.

It was quarter after two.

Down below on the street the fires had been put out and the trucks and firemen were gone. No crowds now. Only a few celebrating stragglers.

However, the soldiers were still there with rifles slung, standing in a well-spaced file around the base of the building. Had they been ordered to remain all night?

If so, Wiley, Lillian and Miguel were stuck up there, their getaway blocked. They sat on the floor as before, opposite the vaults. Every so often Miguel went over and looked down to the street. The situation remained unchanged. Lillian broke the silence by crunching on raw cashews. She said she was tired. She slumped against the wall and Wiley.

He thought about the vaults, wondered, why three?

What little he knew about La Concesión de Gemas was superficial. He had no idea how it really worked for Argenti.

The first vault was for The Concession’s official inventory. As far as the government was involved, it was the only vault and the entire inventory. The government took its percentage according to The Concession’s neat accounting of the emeralds that flowed in and out of vault number one.

The second vault was for the skim. It accommodated the greater portion of the yield from all the mines. The profits from the stones kept in vault number two were shared equally by General Botero, Minister of Defense Vega, Minister of Mines Arias, Senator Robayo and, of course, Argenti. The only other person who knew this vault existed was Kellerman. His cut was two fifths of a percentage point from each of the five men. Not bad, considering the take was a hundred million a year.

The third vault was for Argenti’s skim of the skim. Those emeralds he held out on the others. He saw first and put away for himself the choice of all the stones that came in. It was Argenti’s secret, well kept. Kellerman was nosy enough to have detected vault number three but wise enough not to let on.

Three vaults.

That was why Argenti had gone through the bother and expense of such a complex system. There could be no exterior evidence of three, no dials, knobs or handles. And so, Argenti could rest easy; only he had the combination.

Wiley suspected the third vault was special. Not just because it had contained a higher grade of stones. He sensed it was somehow personally significant to Argenti. All the more reason to be glad it hadn’t been slighted.

Nearly four o’clock now.

If the soldiers didn’t leave soon they would have to change the plan. Come daylight the window-washing scaffold would surely be noticed out of place. The only alternative would be to take the scaffold to the roof before then and remain up there until the next night. It would mean at least seventeen hours of pressure, their lives hung on the chance that no one would look in on the vault room that entire day.

Already the eastern horizon was beginning to hint dawn.

Might as well get to it.

Miguel said: “They’re moving out.”

Below, three canvas-topped army trucks were at the curb. The soldiers broke rank, climbed aboard. The trucks pulled away.

Had all the soldiers gone? A sentry or two might have been left on duty. Wiley scanned the street. A couple of dogs sniffing around, otherwise it seemed deserted. Possibly sentries were posted on the other side of the building. No way of telling without going up on the roof, and not enough time for that.

They put the packs and duffel bags onto the scaffold. Wiley made a final check of the vaults and the vault room to make sure they hadn’t left anything incriminating. A couple of carrot sticks weren’t important. They wouldn’t give Kellerman much to chew on. Lillian had retrieved all her spent cartridges.