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But this is a mean world, and nobody trusts anybody. So sad but true, and the Iranian government had thought of that. If you have anything close to a three-digit IQ, you’ll take one look around you and know none of the crown jewels were going anywhere. Because sitting there in the Central Bank, in the heart of the Islamic Republic, in the middle of eighty million people, including a whole lot of the Revolutionary Guards, who are really well armed and truly don’t like you, the jewels are safer than they would be in a
radioactive pit of cobras rigged with claymore mines and surrounded by SEAL snipers. You might get in, but you would never, ever get out of Iran with any of the jewels. At least not alive, which I consider an important part of any plan.
So it’s not even a challenge. It’s hopeless. The crown jewels were in Tehran, safe, and they weren’t going anywhere.
Until now.
Remember the headline of that article from the in-flight magazine? “Coming to America”? Know what that meant?
The Iranian crown jewels are coming to America.
Why? Politics. It was all spelled out in the article I read on the plane. The jewels are coming to America because a few cool heads on both sides were trying to move Iran and the USA a little closer together. So the two nations had decided to “foster a better understanding of each other’s unique cultural heritage in order to promote a spirit of tolerance and mutual respect.” For some reason, they figured that the best way to do that was by swapping national treasures.
And so the US will send to Tehran an original draft of the Declaration of Independence, the text of the Gettysburg Address—in Lincoln’s very own handwriting—and the US flag from the Battle of Baltimore, the one that inspired F. S. Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The choice for Iran was a whole lot easier. They’re sending a selection from the crown jewels, including the incomparable Daryayeh-E-Noor.
That’s right. The Ocean of Light is coming to America.
After a great deal of debate, it was decided that the imperial collection would be displayed at the Eberhardt Museum, a small private institution in Manhattan. It was established at the turn of the twentieth century to house the art collection of nineteenth-century American robber baron Ludwig Eberhardt. And it’s still privately owned and controlled by Eberhardt’s descendants.
Weird choice? Not really. Because old Ludwig was a truly heartless, greedy bastard, and he collected a huge fortune. That means the museum has a mind-blowingly huge endowment. And because it’s private they can spend that money any way they want without worrying about government budget restrictions. Which means state-of-the-art electronic security, stuff nobody has ever seen before, regardless of expense. Since it is a smaller venue, human security can be a lot tighter, too.
And it will be. Aside from the cutting-edge electronic measures, the jewels will be guarded night and day by a detachment of elite armed security guards from Black Hat Security. Every one of them is a retired SEAL, Green Beret, Force Recon—all former members of America’s elite Special Forces. And in case they fall asleep on the job, the Islamic Republic of Iran is sending a full platoon of the Revolutionary Guard.
All of these security measures are totally serious and impressive. More than enough to persuade any sane thief that stealing the jewels is a really bad idea, unless your idea of a good time is getting shot.
But America is the land of opportunity, and you can’t display the world’s richest collection of jewelry in Manhattan without somebody trying to steal it.
And Somebody, most definitely, is going to try.
More than try—Somebody will think of a way to get past all the lasers and sensors and infrared beams and who knows what else. And that Somebody will figure out how to get past the former SEALs and Rangers and Force Recon guys from Black Hat, and past the bearded, itchy-fingered wackos in the Revolutionary Guard. And that Somebody will get his own itchy fingers on one or two of the Iranian crown jewels, put them in his pocket, and get clean away with the greatest score anybody has ever made in the whole fucking history of heists.
Think that’s crazy? Suicidal? Impossible? It is. Think it can’t be done?
Watch me.
CHAPTER
3
Manhattan has visitors all year long, even in a July as hot as this one was turning out to be. People come from all over the world to visit this great city. Tourists flood the streets, clog the restaurants, jam the subways and buses. For the most part, the natives shrug it off. It takes a lot more than a plague of tourists to shake a New Yorker. They are hardened to the sight of flocks of strangers gawking up at the tall buildings, and mostly they don’t mind. They’ve come to think of the tourists as strolling ATMs.
The man who got out of the cab at Park Avenue and 62nd Street that Tuesday in July was clearly a tourist, and he would not attract any second looks—not in Manhattan, not on a brutally hot day like this. He was average height, average build, and had light brown hair of medium length. The clothes he wore were just what any summer tourist was wearing: lightweight cargo shorts, a bright Hawaiian shirt, and blue Nikes with white crew socks. He wore large sunglasses, of course, and a blue baseball cap that read “NYC” on the front, and he had a small nylon backpack over his shoulder. He paid the cabbie, carefully counting out a 10 percent tip, and then he turned and sauntered easily up the sidewalk toward 63rd Street.
After crossing 63rd, he pulled a camera out of his pack and slung it around his neck—the first noteworthy thing about him, since cameras have become a relic of the past, almost totally replaced by cell phones. But this camera had a top-notch telephoto lens, and it soon became clear why this man preferred it over a cell phone. As he paused and took careful photos of the older and more interesting buildings along his way, concentrating on the decorative strips around windows and doors, it was obvious that he was an architecture buff. Perfectly natural—only a camera can capture detail the way this man wanted it.
At 64th Street, he paused a bit longer and took quite a few shots of the unusual old building there. That was easy to understand, since this was a very rare building indeed. It had been designed by Beauford Harris Whittington, one of Stanford White’s lesser protégés, and although it had many of the features made famous by White—columns, an imposing facade, frenetic gingerbread around the roof’s edge—it lacked the flair of the buildings White had designed personally, like the Metropolitan Club. Instead, it was solid, a little imposing, with a look somewhere between a bank and a fortress. And that is exactly what the nineteenth-century robber baron had in mind when he commissioned it to house his growing collection of artwork. He demanded something that was not a mere building, but a fortress, a vault, a structure that would tell people there were treasures inside, but they were his, and they would stay that way, safe, secure, inviolate.
His treasures were still there, still safe, and the robber baron’s descendants had carefully grown the art collection until it was one of the finest private collections anywhere. And the building that still kept them safe had become mildly famous, among a certain circle. So if the man with the camera took a lot of pictures, from many different angles, it was perfectly understandable. After all, what fan of nineteenth-century American architecture wouldn’t want to study the Eberhardt Museum?
After walking all around the museum, taking pictures from every angle, the photographer moved on. He walked up to 66th Street, and before he crossed Park Avenue, he paused for one last long look at the Eberhardt, a look of distant calculation on his face. Then the light changed, and the man moved on, across Park and then across town.
* * *
—
Most people who visited the Eberhardt Museum did not care about its architecture, of course. They actually went inside, for the paintings. The collection of Baroque and Renaissance masters was well-known, and for those interested in art of that period, the Eberhardt was a must-see. Six days a week, the museum attracted a crowd of art students and tourists. There was a modest admission fee—which would go up significantly when the jewels arrived—as well as a small café and, of course, a gift shop. There were benches, the galleries were long and cool, and the café had a pleasant shaded atrium. All these features added together made the museum an agreeable stop on a hot day, for the culturally inclined. Although the Eberhardt was far from being the most popular museum in Manhattan, most days saw a steady flow of visitors trickling through to admire the paintings, statues, and other artifacts on display.
