Green Ice (40 page)

She and Miguel were waiting on the scaffold. Wiley got on. He flipped the control switch to down.

They kept their eyes on the ground.

It seemed a long trip.

There was the illusion that the ground was coming up to them.

They were ready to act as soon as they reached it.

Wiley flipped the control switch to neutral.

Lillian jumped out and stood watch with Llama ready.

Miguel tossed the parachute packs and duffel bags over the side. The parachutes weighed forty pounds each. Miguel gathered them by their harnesses and slung them over his back.

Wiley shouldered left and right the eighty pounds of emeralds in the two large duffel bags and also took up one of the smaller duffels containing twenty pounds’ worth.

Lillian reached back into the scaffold to flip the control switch to up. She lugged her equipment pack and the other smaller duffel. Heavy for her, but it saved risking a second trip.

They ran for the
barrio
, didn’t stop until they were well within that labyrinth. They looked back at Argenti’s building. It loomed large, appeared foreboding and impregnable as ever, but they knew it was beaten. In the day’s beginning light they could make out the scaffold on its climb, nearing the top. It reached the davits and, like some huge creature, nestled in above the edge of the roof.

The
barrio
was sleeping, silent except for snores, fragments of babies’ cries, a radio that had been left on. Miguel led the way through the maze of shanties and soon they came out on Calle 1-S, a minor side street.

No traffic at that hour. The only moving thing was them. The beat-up panel truck Miguel had had stolen was parked where it was supposed to be. They opened the rear doors, threw in the parachutes and duffel bags.

Still one important thing to do.

They transferred some emeralds into common brown-paper shopping bags, one bag for each, and hurried back into the
barrio
. They went separate ways to cover as much of the area as possible.

They scattered emeralds along the confusing narrow paths and alleys. On the run they flung emeralds into the air by the fistfuls. The precious stones fell upon the makeshift
barrio
roofs like hail. They tossed emeralds into doorless houses, softly pelted sleeping families.

It wasn’t merely a matter of distributing the wealth or repayment for such favors as fires and fireworks.

Lillian especially got carried away. She came upon an old man asleep outside with his Christmas bottle empty and one shoe on. She filled the empty shoe. Three tiny bare children, the earliest up, were allowed to help themselves from her bag as though dipping in for candy. She sowed emeralds like seeds along the cardboard sides of houses, tamped them into the dirt with her feet. She shoved them into surprise places, such as the pocket of an only pair of trousers, washed and put to dry over a window ledge.

The
barrio
was starting to stir by the time Lillian’s paper bag was empty. She had no trouble finding her way back to the panel truck.

Miguel was edgily racing the engine.

Wiley was on his third cigarette.

Lillian acted out of breath and said she’d gotten lost.

28

First thing that Christmas morning Argenti phoned Lillian in Mexico City.

He had tried several calls to her over the past ten days and been told each time by her secretary that she’d given a strict do-not-disturb instruction. Ms. Holbrook was alone, mulling over a vital decision, her secretary said in a tone that insinuated reassurance.

It wasn’t, of course, that Argenti was aching to speak to Lillian. Enough that he gave that impression.

He was certain, however, that she would come to the phone this morning, perhaps to give him her yes answer for Christmas. He had barraged her with gifts: a matinée-length necklace of ten-millimeter Burmese pearls from Van Cleef, a Russian lynx bedthrow, a thousand-dollar hamper of delicacies from Fortnum and Mason and another from Fauchon. A case of La Tache ’61 at a hundred and fifty dollars a bottle. (Her cellar could use it, judging from the comparative
ordinaire
he’d been served the last time he was there.) A little sentimental something: one huge cabbage rose of silk for her hair, attached to the steering wheel of a fifty-thousand-dollar Lancia Stratos.

However, this morning Argenti got her secretary again and second-hand gratitude: he was so generous, the gifts were so tasteful and persuasive and, rest assured, he would be hearing from Ms. Holbrook soon.

Argenti asked to speak to Mr. Wiley.

Who?

Was Mr. Wiley there?

Silence.

Argenti said he knew Mr. Wiley was there. No need to hide the fact.

Her secretary said she believed Wiley was somewhere around. Last seen, he was brooding out at the tennis court, smashing balls at himself on the bangboard.

Argenti clicked off. He was impatient and not quite satisfied. He placed another call to Mexico City. A Conduct Section agent confirmed that neither Lillian nor Wiley had left the house since their arrival ten days previous. Twenty-four-hour surveillance had been and was still being maintained.

Argenti thought he might fly up to Mexico City tomorrow or the day after and help her make up her mind. Probably all she needed was a little romantic nudge.

He was sure of that when he found a gift from her beside his breakfast plate.

A solid-gold shoehorn from Bulgari with his first, middle and last names engraved on it. The accompanying card in her handwriting said
More and more inclined, L
.

Argenti heard the birds that had been singing all the while.

He had a light breakfast, would have a rich, filling lunch with Emanuel Diaz. Who was favored to succeed Robayo as Senator from the district of Boyacá. Robayo was stepping aside because of ill health. The Boyacá district was where the most important mines were located. A scrupulous Senator could be troublesome. Better it should be someone more typical, like Diaz: hungry and corruptible. The election was less than a month away. Argenti was quite certain he had Diaz in his pocket. Today he’d show Diaz what would be put into his.

The lunch was set for two o’clock in Argenti’s office at The Concession.

Argenti arrived there an hour early.

General Botero dropped by. He kidded Argenti about their last polo match. Argenti had missed an easy beneath-the-neck shot, but his pony had kicked the ball in for the winning goal. The General said he believed Argenti had trained the pony to do it. Argenti countered by making a gift of the pony to the General, because, he said, the General hadn’t scored a goal in the last nine chukkers and the pony might save him from further disgrace. The General reminded Argenti they had a match at four and left him in good humor.

Argenti called down to Conduct Section, the control room. The man on duty answered on the first ring. At Argenti’s request he bypassed the timer, pushed a button on the console to electronically withdraw the steel plate that blocked the elevator shaft. He told Argenti the way was now clear.

Argenti went up.

When he stepped out of the small elevator he first noticed the broken glass on the floor. His thought was that a flaw in the glass had caused it. He would raise hell with the …

Then he saw the vaults open. All three.

He rushed into the third vault, yanked open a drawer, and another drawer, and another. He ran from vault to vault, frantically pulling out drawers.

Impossible.

He clenched his eyes because they had to be lying to him.

But every drawer had been stolen clean. Not even a single stone had been dropped on the floor.

Argenti felt as though his stomach and bowels were exchanging places. He was going to either throw up or shit. Voltage was crackling back and forth between his frontal lobes.

Taking a wider stance to remain upright, he bellowed for Kellerman.

29

Kellerman got the blame.

Argenti hung it on him and Conduct Section.

Incompetent, stupid and blind, overconfident about minding the store. Argenti even suggested Conduct Section might have pulled off the robbery, but he did not go so far as to imply that Kellerman was directly involved. He had to depend on Kellerman’s expertise and cunning, now more than ever.

No need to impress Kellerman with what a catastrophe this was. The Concession could not absorb such a huge loss. Most of those emeralds in inventory had already been scheduled for delivery within the next eight weeks. Even if all the mines worked triple shift round the clock for the next six months, it was doubtful the yield would be sufficient to cover those outstanding orders.

Of course, Argenti could stall the clients. They would have no recourse but to wait, inasmuch as The Concession had its monopoly. However, they would be resentful and suspicious. The Concession had already driven its per-carat price to the limit. Clients would believe the squeeze was being put on them again. It would strain relations. But The Concession could endure it.

More critical were the payoffs that were due all the way down the line. Not only those to General Botero, Ministers Vega and Arias and Senator Robayo but the lesser ones to key people on other levels, custom officials and the like. And especially the
esmeralderos
with their have-or-have-not mentalities. There would be no explaining or putting them off. It would take The Concession months to recover, to regain the confidence of the
esmeralderos
, if ever. Many of them were barely cooperative as it was, on the verge of rampage. This could snap the tie. The
esmeralderos
alone were capable of turning The Concession’s operation into chaos—in a week.

Altogether those payoffs amounted to a formidable sum. To maintain them for six months would put The Concession so deep in the red it was likely to go under.

What if the three hundred thousand carats that had been stolen were to find their way onto the market? The price per carat would dive. Clients, with little love for and no loyalty to The Concession, would jump at the opportunity to buy short. The Arabs for sure. The Middle East was one of the strongest markets for colored stones. Those Saudi and Kuwaitin oil princes could buy the lot at a bargain price and use them as party favors, inducements for arms deals, intimate and otherwise. No matter which way it went, three hundred thousand carats flooding the market would ruin it for a long time to come. On the other hand, if the thieves dribbled them out over a year or so, that might be even more harmful, certainly more painful.

The bottom line was that as a result of the robbery, The Concession, the house of sticks built on a base of corruption, had no better than a fifty-fifty chance for survival.

Kellerman assured Argenti that recovery of the inventory was imminent. Argenti believed Kellerman. Because Kellerman stood to lose over two million himself, his percentage on the emeralds that had been in the second vault. It was impossible now to keep the existence of the third vault from Kellerman. There would be no way of explaining the hundred million surplus when the emeralds were recovered. Everything would have to be put back in the same order as before the robbery. Kellerman’s cooperation would be necessary.

Kellerman remained death-mask passive when told of the third vault.

Argenti didn’t have to explain what purpose it served. He offered Kellerman one percent—one million—of vault number three if and when. As extra incentive, was the way Argenti put it.

Kellerman held up two fingers and, that quickly, doubled his take.

First thing, Kellerman took care of some of Argenti’s dirty work. He met with General Botero, Minister Vega, Minister Arias and Senator Robayo. They were stunned at the bad news. And disgruntled. They were not used to losses.

It was agreed in that meeting the local police would not be called in, nor would the press. The robbery was to be kept as confidential as possible, and, by no means, was the true extent of the loss to be revealed. Conduct Section with its international network of informants, agents and people of various specialties on the shady side was best geared to handle the problem. The confidential help of the army and army intelligence, F-2, would be appreciated, naturally.

General Botero pledged it.

Likewise any assistance from the D.A.S., the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad.

Minister of Defense Arias would see to that.

It was decided a reward would be set, word would be leaked out and around. For information leading to apprehension of the thieves (find them, find the emeralds), the offer would be $250,000. Certainly adequate in the likeliest circles, where men often valued others’ lives at $249,000 less—if that much. Still, the extent of the robbery would not be revealed. Only that there had been a robbery of sorts and that an object lesson was due those who had defied The Concession.

Botero, Vega, Arias and Robayo left the meeting still downcast, grumbling, but also indignant now and eager to do their part to bring about justice. Getting them on that side of the crisis was the true purpose of the meeting. A holding action. Maybe it would hold long enough.

Kellerman set about to determine the methods of the robbery. He realized, of course, that the
barrio
fires and the ensuing disorder had not been coincidental. He reviewed the entries in the log books, interrogated the men who had been on duty. They related exactly what they had witnessed on the radar screen and the decibel indicator of the listening alarm. It was more or less understood that they shouldn’t mention having called Kellerman those times when the listening alarm was set off, and, in turn, he wouldn’t admonish them.

Kellerman went to the roof.

There were tracks in the gritty dust. Flat-soled shoes. From the different sizes he knew three persons had taken part. One set of tracks was considerably smaller than the others. Those of a boy or, possibly, a woman.

Other impressions indicated something expansive, like a fabric, had lain upon the roof, swept across the roof in places. From those he deduced how the thieves had gotten up there—or down, to be more exact.