The Inside Job (22 page)

“Ben, you all set?” I asked.

“Yes. Yes, I'm good,” Ben said. He sounded a little frantic, but I wasn't surprised—this was his first time in the field. He opened a red backpack and removed a few gadgets, handing each one to Kennedy. “All right, this is the BENgo—do we need to go over it again?”

“Nope, I'm all set. And the fire is smaller now?” Kennedy asked.

“Yep—good thinking on that. Hale, did you know your sister has a knack for explosives?” Ben said. I grinned at her.

Kennedy beamed. “And I didn't even get to take that class at SRS!”

“And then, Walter, you've got—yes. You've got rope, you've got the pulley, you're all set,” Ben said, nodding at the metal pulley in Walter's hands. He smiled at it. “Gotta respect the classics, right?”

Beatrix's voice crackled in over our comms. “Guys? The truck is leaving now. They're taking a weird route, but I think you'll be able to meet up with them on Rue Sous-Terre.”

“It's a straightaway?” I asked.

“Of course—sort of like a miniature highway in between villages,” Beatrix said, sounding a little offended. I turned over my shoulder to look at Kennedy and Walter,
who were gazing at the floor, seemingly rehearsing something in their heads.

Otter's voice broke in. “If I'm right, they should be going over the Rhône River twice—first pass is in thirty minutes, and that's definitely the better choice, if we can get this done by then.”

“Copy that,” I said. “There they are!”

Ahead of us—way ahead of us—was the truck. Bright-blue flat front, white back with the cleaning company logo. No one would have ever suspected they were moving thirty million dollars of gold. It was clever of SRS to use a truck like this instead of an armored one—armored trucks get robbed frequently, since they so obviously have something valuable inside. Who robs a cleaning company truck? Someone desperate for shiny windows?

Step 3: Line up with SRS's vehicle

“Easy, easy,” Clatterbuck said to himself, setting the truck—and the horse trailer—at a nice clip so that we were gaining on the blue truck but not so quickly that they'd be alarmed.

“It's time?” Walter asked me. I nodded; Clatterbuck hit a button to open the sunroof. Before I could even cringe, my sister was climbing out of it, Walter at her heels. They
hoisted themselves from the car to the sunroof and then jumped into the back of the truck bed. I didn't really want to watch as Kennedy climbed up the side of the horse trailer, wind whipping at the hair that'd come loose from her ponytail, but I did anyhow, holding my breath the entire time.

“They up?” Clatterbuck asked, his voice calm, his eyes on the road.

“Walter is climbing—yes. They're up. Lying flat now,” I said. “Beatrix, you there? We'll need to go dark soon.”

“Got it,” Beatrix said, though she sounded nervous. “You know it's not 9-1-1 here, right? If she falls? It's 1-1-2.”

“Thanks,” I said through gritted teeth. The truck was coming up into view. Ben and I ducked down onto the floorboards—well, Ben did. I didn't fit so neatly, but I managed to get down below the windows. “Easy, easy, easy, easy,” Clatterbuck chanted. Any change in speed, and they could both topple off the trailer . . .

Step 4: Terrifying and impressive cheerleading tricks

Walter and Kennedy moved so quickly that I almost missed it. She planted her feet in his hands, they bounced one, two, three—and the next thing I knew, my sister was
soaring through the space between the trucks, landing neatly on the top of SRS's. Walter then backed up as far as he dared on the trailer; Kennedy braced her knees and held out a hand. Walter ran, leaped—

“They're on, Clatterbuck, back off a little!” I said, cheering a little too loudly. Walter had almost overbalanced on the truck, but Kennedy's arm caught him.

Clatterbuck slowed so that we were just behind the truck, close enough to keep an eye on our agents but far enough back to look like just another driver on a road at night. A few cars zipped along past us, short and neon things, and I was grateful—
if
there was any attention on us, those likely stole it away.

Step 5: Create a door

SRS undoubtedly had an alarm on the truck's back doors—so we weren't going to use them. Instead Clatterbuck, Ben, and I watched as Kennedy knelt and used the BENgo to stamp a circle of dots around her feet, each only a finger-width apart from the others. She and Walter turned their heads away, and suddenly there was a small spark, a little bit of a flame, as the BENgo acids ate through the roof of the truck. Walter kicked the weakened metal circle in and dropped down into the back, out of our sight. Kennedy perched over the hole, watching, her hair eventually coming totally
free of its ponytail. Walter was clearing the space, double-checking that there weren't any agents riding with the cargo—

Kennedy gave us a thumbs-up and then dropped down after Walter. I exhaled.

“Are they in? Are they in?” Beatrix asked, and it sounded like she'd been holding her breath.

“We're in—that wind is
serious
,” Walter said. “All right, Hale, we're at the container with the gold on it. It's not an electronic combination lock, though; it's biometric.”

“What? Biometric?” Otter snapped into the conversation.

“Yep. It's got a mic—voice recognition, I think,” Walter said, sounding grim. “Can we still cut into it and disarm it?”

“Let me think,” I said.

Otter said, “Not much time to think, Jordan, the river's approaching fast—”

“I know, I know . . . ,” I said. The trouble with biometric locks was that there wasn't a
key
. There was just a voice or fingerprint or eye scan, and while you could fake all those things with enough time, it wasn't nearly as simple as picking an old-fashioned tumbler lock or working out the four-digit code of an electronic one.

“Walter? Do you do a good impression of your mother?” I asked.

“Uh, I guess? But you do a better one—”

“Yeah, but you're more likely to have her vocal cord structure. I just pick up her sound when I—never mind. Try your voice on the lock.”

“All right,” Walter said, but he sounded doubtful.

I heard a few beeps, then a machine said, “Authentication required. Please state your name.”

“Teresa Quaddlebaum,” Walter said, invoking a little of his mom's trademark glower into the tone.

“Access denied.”

Everyone groaned in harmony over the comm.

I said, “You need to get higher, I think.”

“I can't get higher!”

“Wait, wait,” Beatrix said, typing frantically. “Walter, say your mom's name again to me.” Walter did. “Okay, hang on . . . Okay, got it. Hold your comm up to the microphone and try it again.”

Walter sighed, but I rustled his comm off. The machine repeated: “Authentication required. Please state your name.”

Through the comm, Beatrix played a file—Walter's voice, digitally raised. “Teresa Quaddlebaum.”

We waited.

We waited.

And . . .

“Access granted,” the voice said, followed by a resounding click.

“You're a genius, Beatrix,” I said, shaking my head.

“Oh, I know,” she answered. “So now—Kennedy, you should have the pulleys ready?”

“All set,” my sister answered.

Kennedy, at this point, was hooking the metal pulley to the top of the truck. She and Walter then got to work, loading gold bars into her owl book bag and hoisting them to the roof, one at a time. Kennedy popped back up onto the roof to offload the bars and stack them neatly, but it was going slower than expected, especially given their weight—she could lift them on her own, but she'd mostly resorted to just sliding them into place. There were fifty-seven bars total—

“How many do you have left?” Otter asked.

“A little over halfway done,” Walter grunted; I heard metal clank together as he hoisted another load to the roof. Twenty million in gold, on the top of a truck, zipping along a Swiss road.

“You'll miss the first pass over the Rhône, but you might be able to make the second,” Otter said, sounding somewhat frenzied.

“No,” I said, “No—Walter, Kennedy, lock the safe back up and get out. We've got most of it, but you're slowing, and the second river pass is only four minutes out. It's not worth the risk.”

“Are you sure, Hale?” Kennedy asked.

“Positive. Move,” I said, and to my relief, no one questioned me. A good spy sticks to the mission, but a good mission director knows the reality of the situation. SRS would still have ten million, sure, but we'd have twice that, and SRS wouldn't know until the vault reached its final destination, and they opened it up . . .

“Wait! Instead of turning the voice lock back on, reset it. Use Kennedy's voice,” I said, nearly shouting into the comm.

“Clever,” Clatterbuck said, smirking. SRS would get to keep their ten million, but they'd have quite a time getting through a biometric lock programmed to Kennedy's voice. As Kennedy and Walter scrambled to the roof, Clatterbuck sped up a little so that we'd be close by when Walter and Kennedy had to jump back over. I saw the road curve ahead, and the bridge. This crossing was larger, so Kennedy and Walter would have more time, but it was still a big task . . .

“River approaching,” Walter said. “Three hundred feet . . . two hundred . . . one hundred . . .”

“Go!” I shouted.

Walter and Kennedy frantically began to shove the gold bars off the roof—and into the river below. They went one pile at a time, Walter shoving and Kennedy kicking piles over with her feet. A few bars clanked against the guardrails before dropping into the water, but they still made it. Ten million in, fifteen million in, sixteen million, the
other side of the bridge and the little village beyond was approaching—

“That's all of them!” Kennedy shouted happily. Ben and I high-fived, and I heard Beatrix celebrating back at the farmhouse. Clatterbuck, however, was even-keeled, getting up closer and closer to the truck. I saw the passenger—it was Mrs. Quaddlebaum—glance at us in her side mirror, but luckily it was too dark for her to notice anything. At least, I hoped it was. Kennedy and Walter walked to the edge of the truck and waited for us to draw closer. I saw Kennedy put her feet in Walter's hands, prep, then soar through the space. She landed squarely on the roof of the horse trailer and then rolled off into the truck bed. Walter was next; he backed up, prepared to run—

The SRS truck hit its brakes.

Not
hard,
but given that Walter was balancing on the rooftop, hard enough. He lost his balance, fell, and rolled down the roof of the truck, but he grabbed ahold of the edge just in time. Clatterbuck had no time to react; he sailed by the SRS truck, and from the floorboards I got a glimpse of Teresa Quaddlebaum glaring into our window, watching our every move, assessing whether the strange horse trailer following them was a threat.

“Keep going, keep going,” I hissed at Clatterbuck.

“But, Walter,” he said through gritted teeth.

“I'm okay!” Walter panted over the comm. “Go, go, or she'll know something's up!”

Clatterbuck listened, continuing on past the truck without hesitation. We all tensed, waiting to see how SRS would react, because if we were caught, we'd almost certainly know in the next few seconds—if they pulled over to check the gold or the back door locks.

They didn't. They continued along.

“I'm back on the roof,” Walter said as we came up on the village. “What should I do, Hale?” I could hear him unraveling—as per usual, Walter didn't react well to a change in plans. We were in a populated part of town—if it were daylight, he'd be able to jump down at a red light, perhaps. As it was the middle of the night, the lights were all green as far as the eye could see.

“Turn here!” I shouted to Clatterbuck.

“But that's a one-way road!” he protested.

“I know!” I argued. Clatterbuck flinched but managed to wheel the horse trailer to the left, between two old brownstone-type buildings. We scratched a few cars parked along its edge, but there was nothing to be done about that—we were in something of a rush. I signaled for Clatterbuck to slow down.

“What are you doing? Where'd you go?” Walter asked shakily.

“We turned down a one-way street—it should signal the traffic lights to change, if they're controlled by a sensor, which they have to be, or there wouldn't be straight greens all down the—yes!” I shouted as the
light on the main road flicked to yellow. The SRS truck would have to stop. Clatterbuck turned our truck off so we were hidden by darkness. Behind us, we watched SRS roll to a stop, wait for the light cycle, and then drive on.

Leaving Walter, who looked like he was about three seconds from fainting, at the light.

Ben and Clatterbuck sprinted from the car to retrieve him, whooping in celebration. Kennedy, who'd been flat in the truck bed for most of this, rose up, grinning crazily, her hair a red nightmare from the wind. She watched as Ben and Clatterbuck guided Walter back, causing more than a few irritated apartment dwellers to peer through their curtains at the source of all the yelling.

“We did it?” Kennedy asked, bounding through the back window of the cab like she'd just drunk nineteen sodas. She knew the answer, of course, but she wanted to hear me say it.

I exhaled and pulled the comm out of my ear to give myself a second without the soft static buzz. I smiled—mission control was, in some ways, way more exhausting than actually being in the field. “Well. Once we pull it out of the Rhône, we'll have SRS's gold. And if we've done everything perfectly, they won't have a clue what we've done until after day two.”