his head. “No. When I pull a heist I make sure there’s no danger to innocent bystanders, and for the most part I only con people who deserve it. This is not something I would ever choose to do. I’m participating in this because there’s a lot at stake. We’ve been tasked to get the smallpox vial, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
“If we get caught, it will create an international scandal, and we’ll lose our best chance at stopping Dragan. He’ll go underground. We won’t know what he’s done with the smallpox until people somewhere start dying horrible deaths.”
“We won’t get caught,” Nick said.
“How do you know?”
“Because Dragan and his crew are great at this.”
“You say that like you admire him.”
“I appreciate his skills,” Nick said. “He’s a criminal mastermind.”
“He’s a homicidal psychopath.”
“That’s definitely a character flaw, but he’s exceptionally good at what he does. His robberies look like quickly improvised smash-and-grabs. But the truth is they are the result of careful preparation, undercover work, and split-second timing. Dragan has the patience to play the long game. There aren’t many people in this business who do.”
“You’re willing to play the long game,” Kate said. “On the surface you seem like a spontaneous kind of guy, but you actually have a lot of patience.”
“You noticed.”
“Hard not to.”
“You’re referring to my expertise as a master criminal, right?”
“Of course.”
Nick grinned and Kate grinned back.
“There are other times when patience comes in handy,” Nick said.
“Are you bragging?” Kate asked.
“Just saying.”
—
Place Vendôme, originally called place Louis le Grand, was built in 1699 as a luxury townhouse development for the rich. That’s what it was until one day in 1792, during the French Revolution, when nine aristocrats got their heads cut off and stuck on spikes in the middle of the square. Overnight the neighborhood became place des Piques (Place of Spikes) and a popular setting for public executions. It took another hundred years before the square got its new name and once again became an enclave for the rich, not only as a place to live, but more important for the job at hand, to spend outrageous amounts of money on precious jewels.
At exactly 3:57 P.M. on Thursday Nicolas Fox drove a black Audi A4 into place Vendôme. Kate O’Hare sat in the passenger seat thinking about all of those heads on spikes and how hers could soon be on one, too, figuratively speaking. The Boucheron jewelry store was directly ahead. The Ministry of Justice was to their left, and there were four police officers armed with M16s standing outside and even more of them inside. This was an extremely dangerous heist, and they were entrusting their escape, and possibly their lives, to the Road Runners and their ability to stop the police from responding. Kate didn’t like putting her safety into anyone’s hands but her own.
At the same moment that Nick drove into place Vendôme, an identical Audi with two Road Runners inside entered the square from the opposite end of rue de la Paix and headed in their direction. The two cars passed without seeing each other because the sheathed scaffolding and plywood fencing around the 144-foot-tall Colonne Vendôme in the center of the plaza blocked opposing traffic from view.
“I ambushed a police transport on Monday to rescue a crook and here I am on Thursday, robbing a jewelry store,” Kate said. She and Nick were buckled tight into their seats and wore matching crash helmets with tinted visors that obscured their faces. “They didn’t train us for this at Quantico.”
“That’s why the FBI needs me to catch people like me. Sometimes you have to commit crimes to prevent bigger crimes,” Nick said. “The curriculum at Quantico needs to be changed. They should invite us in to teach.”
The very thought gave Kate a queasy stomach.
Ahead of them,
“If we get caught, it will create an international scandal, and we’ll lose our best chance at stopping Dragan. He’ll go underground. We won’t know what he’s done with the smallpox until people somewhere start dying horrible deaths.”
“We won’t get caught,” Nick said.
“How do you know?”
“Because Dragan and his crew are great at this.”
“You say that like you admire him.”
“I appreciate his skills,” Nick said. “He’s a criminal mastermind.”
“He’s a homicidal psychopath.”
“That’s definitely a character flaw, but he’s exceptionally good at what he does. His robberies look like quickly improvised smash-and-grabs. But the truth is they are the result of careful preparation, undercover work, and split-second timing. Dragan has the patience to play the long game. There aren’t many people in this business who do.”
“You’re willing to play the long game,” Kate said. “On the surface you seem like a spontaneous kind of guy, but you actually have a lot of patience.”
“You noticed.”
“Hard not to.”
“You’re referring to my expertise as a master criminal, right?”
“Of course.”
Nick grinned and Kate grinned back.
“There are other times when patience comes in handy,” Nick said.
“Are you bragging?” Kate asked.
“Just saying.”
—
Place Vendôme, originally called place Louis le Grand, was built in 1699 as a luxury townhouse development for the rich. That’s what it was until one day in 1792, during the French Revolution, when nine aristocrats got their heads cut off and stuck on spikes in the middle of the square. Overnight the neighborhood became place des Piques (Place of Spikes) and a popular setting for public executions. It took another hundred years before the square got its new name and once again became an enclave for the rich, not only as a place to live, but more important for the job at hand, to spend outrageous amounts of money on precious jewels.
At exactly 3:57 P.M. on Thursday Nicolas Fox drove a black Audi A4 into place Vendôme. Kate O’Hare sat in the passenger seat thinking about all of those heads on spikes and how hers could soon be on one, too, figuratively speaking. The Boucheron jewelry store was directly ahead. The Ministry of Justice was to their left, and there were four police officers armed with M16s standing outside and even more of them inside. This was an extremely dangerous heist, and they were entrusting their escape, and possibly their lives, to the Road Runners and their ability to stop the police from responding. Kate didn’t like putting her safety into anyone’s hands but her own.
At the same moment that Nick drove into place Vendôme, an identical Audi with two Road Runners inside entered the square from the opposite end of rue de la Paix and headed in their direction. The two cars passed without seeing each other because the sheathed scaffolding and plywood fencing around the 144-foot-tall Colonne Vendôme in the center of the plaza blocked opposing traffic from view.
“I ambushed a police transport on Monday to rescue a crook and here I am on Thursday, robbing a jewelry store,” Kate said. She and Nick were buckled tight into their seats and wore matching crash helmets with tinted visors that obscured their faces. “They didn’t train us for this at Quantico.”
“That’s why the FBI needs me to catch people like me. Sometimes you have to commit crimes to prevent bigger crimes,” Nick said. “The curriculum at Quantico needs to be changed. They should invite us in to teach.”
The very thought gave Kate a queasy stomach.
Ahead of them,
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