The Downside Page 6

  “Oh, fuck off.”

  The breeze continued to freshen, beginning to kick up dust.

  “You have a time frame?” Jake asked.

  “End of the year.”

  “That’s tight.”

  “Every day we wait, there’s a chance the problem gets discovered. Then everything goes into screaming lockdown, and we really are done.”

  “Still.”

  “I’m thinking the holiday week,” said Finn. “Quiet time. Hardly anything going in or out—except us, a few hours one night.”

  “New Year’s Eve?”

  “Yeah, maybe.” They went to the back of the building, where Finn’s truck was parked out of view from the street.

  “Still risky,” Jake said. “Lots of security in there.”

  “We’ll set up a distraction. Keep ’em busy with something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. They’re a railroad—how about we steal a train?”

  Jake groaned. “Oh, sure, that worked great last time.”

  “Well, I’ll think of something.” Finn blew on his hands. “What do you say?”

  “Thinking about it.” Jake went around to the passenger side. He’d parked a few miles away, and Finn had driven him over. No need to concentrate risk further than necessary. “It’s not impossible?”

  “Of course not.”

  “December thirty-first.”

  “Yeah.”

  Jake pulled open the door. “That sure ain’t much time.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  David eased out of the cruiser, favoring his left leg. The doctor said he might want an artificial knee, but that seemed far too dramatic a step. He sighed and pulled himself vertical, using the door as a prop before slamming it shut.

  The classification yard’s dispatch center was a forbiddingly blank building of ’60s-era brick and aluminum, topped by a 360-degree glass tower. It doubled as Penn Southern’s administrative office for the district. David had his own rooms around back, including a holding cell and a well-secured gun locker. Sean’s truck was parked at the end of the small lot, with one slot left for David’s prowler.

  The executive spaces up front were filled, Boggs’s company Escalade prominent among them. A driver sat inside, staring idly at his phone, with the engine running.

  Of course, that didn’t mean Boggs would necessarily be leaving soon. He just liked his vehicle kept warm.

  Inside, David greeted the desk man.

  “He’s waiting for you in the conference room,” the guard said.

  “Sean there already?”

  “He took the doughnuts in.”

  “Hope you got one.”

  The man grinned. “Chocolate sprinkle.”

  The conference room was on the second floor, with ancient linoleum and an imitation-wood-grain table that carried decades of dings and cigarette burns. A long row of windows looked out over the yard—the same view the dispatchers had in their aerie one floor above.

  “Good morning, sir,” David said.

  Boggs irritably slapped shut a leather portfolio at the table’s front. “About time,” he said. “Let’s get started.”

  “One sec.” Sean was crouched at the AV cart, fiddling with cables. “Sorry, I can’t get your laptop connected.”

  “I don’t need it.” Boggs stood up as Sean sat down. The CEO was easily the best-looking man in the room, all dark hair and white teeth and a fine suit.

  Being twenty years younger than David helped, of course.

  “First of all,” he said, “this topic is confidential. You can take notes, I don’t care, but don’t go talking about it outside. For now, you two are the only ones who are going to know, and I want it kept that way.”

  David looked around for doughnuts but saw only an empty cardboard plate, dusted with powdered sugar, near Boggs’s chair. “Fine by me,” he said. “But if it has anything to do with operations, we might need to make arrangements.”

  “We’ll get to that. I just want to emphasize again, top secret. If even a whisper gets out, it’s going to make the whole thing much, much more difficult.”

  “Got it.”

  “Thank you.” Boggs had his most serious face on. “It’s very important.” He cleared his throat, taking his time, preparing the reveal.

  “So,” said David. “Is this about the Chinese excavator?”

  There was a long pause.

  “How,” said Boggs slowly, “did you know that?”

  “NYPD’s intel section called me last week.”

  Boggs glared. “The deputy commissioner swore up and down he’d keep it secret!”

  “Wasn’t him.” David leaned back, his chair scraping the linoleum. “They have informants out in the activist groups. Some environmental bunch is upset.”

  “Guys in the barn were talking about it, too,” said Sean. “One of the mechanics has a brother-in-law at Leveret Steel, something like that. Are they really shipping it on a special?”

  Boggs stared at him. “Jesus Christ.”

  David coughed. “Actually—”

  “What else, some dumbshit posted pictures on Facebook?”

  “No, what I was going to say is I don’t actually know that much about it.”

  Boggs raised his hands like he was surrendering and looked at Sean. “Why don’t you tell him? At least we can see how accurate the rumors are.”

  “It’s the Antarctic mining project,” Sean said.

  “I heard that much.” David’s holster was digging into his side, and he shifted it to a more comfortable position in the chair.

  “So the Chinese are breaking the treaty, going in for platinum and chromium and I don’t know what. It turns out one of their scientific stations is sitting right on top of the biggest seam in Wilkes Land—quite a coincidence, that. But apparently digging platinum out of the coldest place on Earth is trickier than West Virginia, and they’re buying some of the equipment from Leveret. In particular, the excavator, which is going to be the third-largest piece of earthmoving equipment ever built.” He hesitated. “Ice-moving?”

  “Whatever.” Boggs took back the conversational reins. “None of this matters to us, except that they’re shipping the excavator out of Port Elizabeth—and they’re bringing it here by train. Our train.”

  David considered that. “How big?”

  “What?”

  Sean crossed his arms. “The biggest component is the bucket-chain arm. I think they said thirty-seven meters.”

  “Leveret’s in Pittsburgh.” David ran the routes in his mind. “And that’s huge. Articulated flatcars?”

  “Custom built.”

  A train horn blew, and they all turned instinctively to the window. Nothing exceptional—cars coasting into the retarders, switching engines at work, a full train moving slowly out the mainline.

  “The problem isn’t how big this thing is,” said Boggs. “It’s the demonstrators.”

  “That’s what NYPD was worried about.” David nodded. “Not Earth Liberation Front—like them, but more radical. They’re expecting direct action.”

  “Then you’ve got the anti-China protesters,” said Boggs. “Free Tibet, that kind of shit.”

  “They don’t sound too bad.”

  “Plus, there’s the matter of Leveret’s ownership structure.” He paused, looking around. “Oh, the lunch table hasn’t reviewed that in detail, too?”

  David raised his eyebrows. “Ownership structure?”

  “They were bought out by private equity a few years ago. There were some internal deals … At this point, the largest owners are Goldman Sachs, Carlyle Group, and I think some unit at J.P. Morgan.”

  David laughed, not happily. “Oh, that’s awesome. So Occupy Wall Street’s joining the party, too?”

  “Some bunch
of commies or another. Who can keep them straight?” Boggs shook his head. “And don’t forget the extremists who’d rather go to war with China than sell them stuff. They’ll probably have the guns.”

  “How long is the excavator going to be on the property?”

  Boggs shrugged. “At least one shift to unload the damn thing and truck it over to the port. Probably need a special hauler.”

  “No doubt the protesters will figure that out.” David sighed. “So for a day, maybe a day and a half, we’re going to have a big angry mob at the gates. Think they’ll chain themselves to the track?”

  Sean shook his head. “Nah.”

  “Good—”

  “Nowadays they use bicycle locks.”

  “I need an action plan,” said Boggs. “We’re going to be ready for them, no matter what. Newark has already told me they can send out their Special Operations division.”

  A year before, David had participated in a joint drill with NPD’s crowd-control unit. The armored trucks and mounted water cannons certainly were intimidating, not to mention the dozens of assault paramilitaries in black helmets and body armor.

  “If a riot starts,” he said, “which you’re making sound all too likely, it’s going to affect everyone. I’m sure we can keep it contained outside the yard, but we might not be able to send trains in and out on schedule.”

  “That’s why we’re doing it on New Year’s Day.” Boggs looked pleased with himself, so it was clear where that idea had come from. “Number one, it’s one of our slowest periods anyway—everything’s rush, rush, rush to the end of the year, then all the shippers take a break. Number two, everyone’s hungover—including, I’ll bet, most of those hippie protesters. We’ll schedule the transfer for early morning, say four a.m., and that alone should cut the crowd in half. Number three …” He paused, looked at his fingers. “I know there’s a number three.”

  David had hoped to have the holiday off himself. Visit the grandchildren, watch some football—forty-four years of seniority, he ought to get real vacation time now and then.

  Boggs wrapped up the meeting in a cheerful mood. “I’m sure we can make this work,” he said, picking up his portfolio and buttoning his suit coat. “But let’s try extra hard to keep the actual day from slipping out, all right? I know you think it will leak, but the longer we keep it under our hats, the more trouble the protesters will have organizing themselves.”

  “I’ll tell everyone not to call the Star Ledger just yet.”

  “Good, good.”

  After he’d sailed out of the room, David and Sean looked at each other.

  “You know, scheduling it during vacation week just means more people will have time off to come down and join the fun. And if Boggs is serious about four a.m., they’ll be coming straight from the bars.”

  “Carrying noisemakers and party hats,” said Sean.

  “On the other hand …” David eased up from his seat, knee hurting, and pushed himself standing with the chair back. “He’s right about one thing—it is the quietest day of the year. Nothing else will be going on at all.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Finn drove across the Ironbound, keeping to the speed limit. The wind had picked up, gusting against the truck and swirling grit off the streets.

  “What I don’t understand …” Jake said.

  “Yeah?”

  “So the way you describe it, this guy Wes wants us to break in but not actually take anything.”

  “Right.”

  “An incredibly well-protected vault filled with precious metals. Could be anything in there—millions and millions of dollars’ worth. Tens of millions.”

  “Or even hundreds. Yup.”

  “We break our backs getting in—I mean, you can come up with a plan and all, but it sure ain’t going to be easy—and then we stand there, surrounded by more treasure than we could spend in ten lifetimes …”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And then we just walk away.”

  “That’s Wes’s proposal.”

  “But the payout, the only way we actually get any money out of this for ourselves—Wes has to pay us. We’re completely dependent on him.”

  “Like I said, that’s his proposal.”

  Jake crossed his arms. “I don’t like it.”

  Finn slowed for a light.

  “Me neither,” he said. “That job would be stupid. All risk and no reward.”

  Jake started to smile. “I knew it!”

  “Wes just needs the break-in to cover up his problems with fake ingots—not for us to actually steal anything. If we get caught and somebody talks, then he’s got huge potential problems. So he wants us in and out as quick as possible.”

  “But we’re smarter than that,” said Jake.

  “We’re not leaving empty-handed, no.”

  “How much?”

  “What?”

  “How much are we going to take out?”

  Finn nodded. “Everything,” he said.

  They pulled into the Home Depot parking lot where Finn had picked Jake up earlier. It was a good place to meet and switch vehicles: busy in the early morning, filled with small-time contractors who looked no different from themselves coming and going. Finn had checked, and the store’s cameras all seemed to be on the building itself, not at the far end of the lot.

  Wind buffeted the truck. Jake didn’t get out immediately.

  “So you’re in?” Finn said.

  “Now that I know you’re serious.” Jake patted his pockets, looking for something. “Work-for-hire’s bullshit, but if we can offload a few million dollars of untraceable metal, then damn straight I’m in.”

  “You might be thinking too small.”

  “Fucking awesome, man.”

  Down the row from them, two guys were hoisting a stack of plywood onto a panel van’s roof rack. The wind kept lifting the wood sheets, threatening to send them across the lot like a tornado. Even through the closed cab, Finn could hear them swearing and shouting at each other.

  Jake found what he’d been searching for, a round chewing-tobacco tin. “Want some?”

  “I quit when I was inside.” Finn felt the nicotine pull but resisted. “Don’t need the mouth cancer.”

  Jake shook the tin and it rattled. “Me, too—I just store my gum in here.”

  “All the same.”

  The pair of carpenters finally secured their plywood by having one guy climb up and sit on top of the stock while the other tied the ropes around it. Elsewhere in the lot, carts were shoved sideways by the wind, hats blown away, a swirl of dust and paper and rubbish kicked up in a minicyclone.

  “Feels like a storm is coming, even though the sky’s clear,” said Jake.

  “Can you talk to the galvanizing shop today?” The plan wasn’t detailed inside Finn’s head, but he could see the contours.

  “Yeah, but he’s going to wonder.”

  “Tell him you need to get rid of a body.”

  Jake laughed. “I think he might do that on the side anyway.”

  He shook out a few Chiclets, threw them into his mouth, and zipped his jacket back up. “I got to get going.”

  Finn nodded. “Thanks.”

  As he opened the door, Jake paused. “We’re going to need a railroad man,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “A good one.”

  “I already called him,” said Finn. “Just waiting to hear back.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I don’t want a fucking garbage train! Not today!”

  Corman looked down at him. The guy was a Cross-Harbor vice president. What the fuck did he think the company did? Half their business was carrying trainloads of trash to faraway landfills.

  “Three times a week,” he said. “Per contract.”

  “Send them back!
”

  “Back?” The wind gusted again, hard, and Corman zipped up his slicker. It was small on him—Corman was the approximate size of a grizzly—but better than nothing. “The switcher shoved off an hour ago. The gons can sit there or come off the float, but they ain’t disappearing anywhere.”

  They stood on the edge of Brooklyn, at the far reaches of the Sunset Park piers. Ancient pilings stood like broken teeth in the water. An abandoned warehouse stood to one side, empty windows staring blankly at Cross-Harbor’s floating dock. Iron rails led to the platform’s end, where Corman had snugged in the barge with a four-foot wrench. Four gondolas had already been pushed aboard the barge on tracks that could accommodate six cars altogether. One more sat waiting on the dock.

  Tarps were tied over the open tops, but nothing could disguise the stink.

  “That engine can take them away.” The Cross-Harbor VP pointed at the ancient GP9 behind Corman.

  He sighed. “The geep’s yard-only,” he said. “Not rated for traffic. Probably up and die anyway, we tried to move the entire cut.”

  “You’re not understanding me.” The VP breathed heavily, apparently trying to keep his nose closed off. “We have visitors today. Potential investors. They’re going to arrive in five minutes. We want to show them a clean, well-managed, high-functioning shortline railroad. Not a goddamned … reeking … dump!”

  Corman had spent ninety minutes coupling and uncoupling the gondolas, wrench slipping off the heavy iron where it was fouled by unspeakable slop. His boots and gloves stank wretchedly.

  “I ain’t sure we should be running a full load over now anyway,” he said. “Weather’s kicking up.”

  The VP glanced at the harbor. Jersey City was three miles away, clearly visible across the water, but the waves looked rough.

  “If you can’t get them off the barge, then get it off the dock,” he said. “Now.”

  “That’s up to the captain.”

  The tugboat had already tied onto the barge, waiting for Corman to finish loading. He’d cabled down the four cars and had been setting out the last one when the VP’s black Mercedes G-Class bumped across the yard’s broken asphalt.