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King sat forward again. “Are you kidding? The interior minister we stole it from had bought the Van Gogh off the black market in the late 1990s. He paid peanuts for it, and he didn’t dare show it in public until after he spent ten years falsifying provenance data for it.”
We all looked at him in surprise. Could that possibly be true? I remembered going over that documentation with a fine-toothed comb. And I also remembered the fuss the owner had made over his insurance claim.
“Did the interior minister hire you to steal it for the insurance money?” I asked.
There was true surprise on King’s face. “Fuck,” he muttered. “I… I don’t think so? I mean… I can’t say for sure. But, honestly, the thought never occurred to me until now. I don’t see how Elek could have afforded to build the estate without that full payday. But then again, there are a lot of things I didn’t know about Elek at the time. I thought I knew him. Clearly I was mistaken.”
Seeing this side of him, this unsure, less cocky side, was startling. It was hard to imagine Kingston Wilde as anything other than self-confident and fully cognizant of every job he participated in. But then again, I had to remind myself the King Wilde who started stealing art had been a young college student far from home, a small-town boy with stars in his eyes. Was it that hard to believe he had come under the spell of an older, wiser manipulator?
The thought of someone taking advantage of King in those early days bothered me more than I cared to admit.
“Why do you want to break in before the gala?” I asked.
King tapped his fingers on the table. “Number one, I want to get the lay of the land. I know the house as it was designed, but I don’t know how it was actually built. Number two,” he said, tapping his middle finger on the table next to his index finger, “there is a phenomenon in which a failed attempt can give the homeowner a false sense of security. It’s the idea of ‘what are the chances it would happen again?’ Which means at a time when security should be higher, it’s actually a little more lax.” He tapped his third finger on the table. “Third, I need to get into the house, or at least close, to mount a signal jammer.”
This time when Ziv reacted to King, he did so with less annoyance. I wondered why. “Why can’t you just bring a jammer with you on the night of the main operation?”
Linney answered before King could, her eyes widening in realization. “I didn’t realize this before, but in the satellite images it shows too much distance in the clearing between the road and the house. By the time any of us approached, the security team will have had a chance to ring the alarms.”
King nodded. “And if, say, Mouse were to roll up in a delivery van, they can go ahead and signal for security to come, but it won’t matter, because he’s just there to deliver some flowers, let’s say.”
It was Mouse’s turn to speak. “And we put the jammer in the flowers? I don’t think that’s going to work.”
King shook his head. “No. While Mouse is delivering the flowers, I’ll be in the tunnel delivering the jammer. They’re already going to alert security, so if they think the tunnel has been breached, by the time they check it out, I’ll be gone.”
I could tell Ziv was thinking it through, and I was surprised when he smiled. “I see what you’re saying, man. That might work.”
King glanced at me in surprise. “It’s a miracle. Maybe the man is turned on by breaking and entering.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Careful, he’s one sneaky op from changing sides.”
Ziv agreed, and Mouse nudged him in the shoulder. “I’m not sure Ziv wasn’t a bad guy before he came to work with us,” Mouse admitted with a grin. “He’s certainly moody enough to be a criminal.”
King faked a frown. “Oh, we’re supposed to be moody? Good to know. Okay, let’s plan the fake delivery for this afternoon. We’ll need—”
Linney interrupted. “That soon? Do we even have the tech we need? And where the hell are we going to get a flower arrangement by then?” Her fingers started flying over the keys of her computer.
“Mouse,” I said to the youngest operative on our team, “confirm we have a jammer in that shipment in the outbuilding. Linney, go ahead and source a florist. If there isn’t one on the island—”
“There is,” she confirmed. “I’m on it.”
“Okay,” I said, turning to King. “What else?”
He seemed surprised I’d gone along with his plan, and he seemed even more surprised I’d allowed him to schedule it so soon. I wanted to tease him about calling his bluff, but now was the time to work, not tease.
