Harbinger Read online

  Four banks were on the schedule today. Luckily, most of the banks on the list were along Boulevard La Fayette. After I found a central location to park my car, I looked along the rooftops for a clear path of travel from one perch to the next. I would have to climb down from the roof level twice to cover all the banks on the list for today. That wouldn’t be a problem—climbing was still one of my strengths, even if I could no longer rely on my mental enhancements.

  I pulled myself up to a ledge on the second floor of a hotel before taking the fire escape to the roof. I smiled inwardly as I wrapped my coat tightly around my neck, shielding myself against the crisp breeze coming from the English Channel. With my phone in hand and my camera by my side, I was ready to snap a shot or two (or twelve) of the bagmen carrying the cash.

  I sent Storc a secure text, letting him know I was in place and ready for his signal. A thumbs up emoticon arrived on my screen a few moments later.

  On the roof of the hotel, tucked behind the low wall that created the top of the building’s façade, the sun began to warm me through my coat right around the time the banks opened. The cars that had intermittently arrived in front of the buildings over the preceding thirty minutes suddenly disgorged their occupants as the various banks opened their doors for the day’s business. I began snapping pictures of all who entered, furiously zooming, clicking, and then refocusing on the next building before repeating the process. After the initial flurry of activity, the action thinned out.

  About thirty minutes after the banks had opened, Storc called my secure Voice over IP app.

  “Yeah,” I answered after touching the button on my Bluetooth headset.

  “The first deposit was just recorded,” Storc said with a tone that was all business. “RTR Grand Cayman Banque et Assurance.”

  I shifted my attention down to that building and began snapping photos of everyone who exited for the next fifteen minutes. After a brief pause to sip coffee from my thermos, I returned to taking photos of those entering the other banks that were in view from my perch.

  “The second deposit has just been made,” Storc said through my earpiece several minutes later. “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “It’s ten million euros,” he said. “It must have been a big case of money.”

  “Which bank?”

  “Rosemore FB Calais Lafayette,” he replied.

  I swung my camera around and began snapping photos again until I saw two men exiting the bank carrying what appeared to be a pair of black briefcases. When they got to their car, they opened the trunk, revealing six other identical black cases. Not cash… bearer notes. The cases aren’t big enough for that much cash.

  “I’m going after these guys,” I said into my headset as I quickly grabbed my belongings and stuffed them into my canvas shoulder bag.

  “Don’t you want me to do the facial match scans to see if they were at the other bank?” Storc asked.

  I slipped the SD card out of the camera and popped it into the reader for my iPad. I looked over the low brick wall as the pictures slowly spooled to my tablet.

  “Come on, come on. Hurry,” I muttered.

  “Me?” Storc asked.

  “No. The pictures are spooling,” I replied. “Hold on.”

  As soon as they finished downloading, I compressed them into an encrypted tar file, called it “Calais-1-26,” and then hit the FTP connection to send them on their winding way to Storc’s secure proxy server. I tucked the iPad into my messenger bag and started to climb down before they had even finished sending.

  “They’re on the way,” I said as I reached the roof of the townhouse next to the hotel.

  I hopped over the edge and ran along the wayward side of the rooftops. Every few feet of travel, I crossed back up the ridgeline to see the progress of the now-moving black sedan that the cash couriers were driving.

  “I see the files,” Storc informed me. “I’m downloading them now.”

  “I’m following their car,” I said, hopping down to the next roof level. “Let me know if it’s not them.”

  The sound of Storc’s fingertips clicking against the keyboard of his computer was all the acknowledgment I needed that he was on the job. When I reached the end of the row houses, I hopped down half a story and continued my roof-level pursuit. Thankfully, the early morning traffic was heavy; otherwise, there would have been no way for me to keep up with them on foot.

  I alternated between keeping an eye on the slow-moving vehicle and my footing on the steeply pitched roof. I was rapidly approaching the end of the block—I’d have to climb down to the street soon.

  “Thank you Chunnel traffic,” I muttered as I jumped down to the last row house at the end of the block, grateful for the sluggish progress of my targets.

  “They went into the first bank as well…carrying the same kind of cases,” Storc said into my ear as I swung down from the roof onto a narrow terrace at the back of the house. There, I startled an old woman who was smoking and having her morning coffee in the cold.

  “Mon dieu!” she exclaimed, pulling her heavy housecoat closed more tightly around her and nearly overturning the table with her coffee. The cigarette dropped from her fingers and fell to the ground below.

  “La cheminée est propre,” I said, letting her know her chimney was clean.

  “What was that?” Storc asked as I climbed over the rail of the woman’s small porch and then dropped down to the ground.

  The woman leaned over the rail with a confused expression. “Nous avons une cheminée?” she asked, surprised to discover she had a chimney.

  I just smiled as I raced around the corner toward the street. It took me a moment to spot the sedan again, but once I did, I walked briskly in its direction on the opposite side of the street.

  “Get the photos to Ruth at Langley,” I said to Storc. “I’m going to see if I can get closer. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Don’t—”

  His warning cut short as I closed the secure VoIP connection. I followed the sedan at a discreet distance for a few minutes before it crossed traffic and turned onto Rue Caillette. I ran to catch up, peeking around the corner once I arrived. The sedan had come to a halt in front of another bank on the list.

  I watched as the two men exited the back of the sedan and removed two more cases from the trunk before disappearing inside the bank. When I was within twenty yards of the parked car, the driver looked up, into the rearview mirror.

  Casually, I turned away from my target and down a narrow alley. There, I stared into the corner window of a cheese shop. The reflection in the store window was all I needed to keep an eye on them. The driver returned to his newspaper.

  After a few moments, I looked at my watch. Two minutes, I thought. I can’t stand here the whole time… Someone will notice.

  I needed to find another location to observe from or I wouldn't be able to get more pictures.

  When I looked up, I caught a blur of motion behind me in the window’s reflection. A tall young woman in an oversized brown hoodie walked past—she was almost as tall as me. I turned as she bumped into me.

  “Oh. Excusez-moi,” she said sincerely as she fell forward. But despite the grasp of her hand on my arm as she stumbled, I was not so distracted that I didn’t feel her other hand slipping into my back pocket.

  I grabbed her arm firmly. The look on her face was one of pure fear as I wrenched her hand up, exposing my wallet tightly clasped in her fingers.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” I said quietly, looking over my shoulder to see if anyone across the street had noticed the commotion.

  “Monsieur, se il vous plaît,” she pleaded as she struggled to free herself.

  I turned back and squinted my eyes at her. As I looked her up and down, she assumed a more demure posture—I got the feeling she was about to offer a sexual favor in exchange for letting her go.

  Thanks, but no thanks.

  Her lips parted as if to whisper some suggestion, but I interrupted he
r.

  “What’s your name?” I asked

  She tilted her head sideways as the fear deepened on her face, but she gave no reply.

  I relaxed my stance a bit without releasing my grip on her arm. “Your name, please?”

  “Merane,” she replied cautiously.

  “Merane, are you generally any better at this than you were with me?” I asked.

  “Excusez?” she asked, her face a mask of innocence.

  “The pickpocketing…are you any good at it?” I asked again, letting a friendly grin slide up one cheek and crinkling my eyes to convey sincerity—falsely.

  “It was a mistake—”

  “Knock it off. Are you a good pickpocket?” I said, amused boredom coloring my tone.

  She nodded hesitantly, knitting her brow together in confusion. “You moved, and your pocket was deeper than I thought it was… American clothes.”

  I nodded and looked over my shoulder toward the bank.

  “We could have an arrangement if you—” she said with a heavy French accent, but before she could finish, I pulled the camera from my bag.

  “Yes,” I said as I raised it to show her. “I think we can have an arrangement.”

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “A job,” I replied as I thumbed through the photos from this morning with my free hand.

  “A job?”

  I held the camera screen up for her to view one of the two couriers who had entered the bank. “This man is in that bank over there,” I said while nodding that direction. “Get me his wallet, and I will give you more money than what I had in mine.”

  She blinked in mild surprise as I released her.

  “How much?” she asked as she handed me my wallet.

  I reached into my front pocket and withdrew the wad of Euros I carried with me. Realization struck her and she rolled her eyes. “Front pocket,” she muttered.

  “Don’t feel bad,” I said. “Everyone has off days.”

  She looked toward the bank and then back at me. “And if I refuse?”

  I shrugged. “Then you can go…without the money.”

  An expression of concentration descended over her young face as she contemplated walking away empty-handed. But I was running out of time, so I decided to move her decision along. I tucked the money back into my pocket.

  “No…I’ll do it,” she said suddenly, reaching for the cash.

  “After,” I said, pulling the reward out of her reach.

  She clenched her jaw but then nodded her agreement to our terms.

  “Where would he be carrying his wallet?” I asked, testing her.

  “Poche de poitrine, left if he is right hand,” she replied, answering correctly. At least she seemed to intellectually understand her craft, if not the subtleties of execution.

  I put my wallet in my left breast pocket and straightened my coat. “Show me,” I said.

  I turned to the side and felt her place a hand on my shoulder. When I turned back, she smiled. “Pardon,” she said and held my wallet up for inspection.

  Whoa! Much better than the first time.

  “Go,” I said, nodding toward the bank again, and pulling my wallet from her fingertips a second time.

  She set off at a slow jog before crossing between the slow-moving cars to the other side of the street.

  I continued to watch in the reflection of the cheese shop window as she set up post near the entrance of the busy bank. After she pulled her hood up over her head and tightened her scarf around her chin, she looked in my direction briefly.

  She didn’t look at me again until about five minutes later when the two men came out of the bank carrying the cases. Judging by the way the couriers were handling them, the cases were much lighter than they had been when they went in. My little pickpocket looked at me once to verify we were still on plan…no worry, just verification. I nodded at her reflection in the window.

  Once she moved into action, she was poetry. Her gait was natural and seemingly without purpose as she merged onto the busy sidewalk. She had her hands buried deeply into her hoodie as she approached the men and maneuvered herself between the two couriers and oncoming foot traffic.

  She timed it perfectly. Just as she was about to pass her target, she let a pedestrian slam into her, violently spinning her to the ground in front of the two men.

  The courier reached out instinctively to stop her fall as she began swearing at the passing man who had hit her. He also stopped to help her up, apologizing profusely as she climbed back to her feet using her target as leverage.

  Once she was to her feet, she shook both men off her in agitation before storming angrily off the sidewalk toward me. I turned and walked deeper into the alley, looking over my shoulder once to make sure she wasn’t followed.

  “My money,” she said as she strode toward me aggressively.

  For a brief instant, I thought she was preparing to hit me. I looked at the store window. The reflection of the sedan moved out of sight and then passed the alley. I breathed out in relief as it continued past the corner of the store without pausing.

  “Did you get it?” I asked.

  She held up the man’s wallet in front of her, anxious, agitated. “My money.”

  I reached into my front pocket and grabbed the wad of bills as my gaze returned to the sedan. It was passing in front of the cheese shop as the young woman stopped in front of me. Just as she snatched the bills from my hand, the sedan screeched to a halt beyond the window of the shop. My body tensed as if for a fight.

  If I didn’t want Merane’s transaction with me to be revealed as “pickpocket for hire”, I had to act fast.

  “Your jacket,” I said urgently, still looking at the car through the corner glass. “Quickly.”

  She turned and saw through the windows that the car had stopped. As she quickly peeled off her hoodie, I did the same with my long black wool coat, handing it to her as I snatched the courier’s wallet from her hand.

  As she pulled my coat over her shoulders, I shoved her into the recess. The scarf around her neck unwound in my hand as she scrambled backward.

  She shot me a nervous glance. “He had a gun,” she said, which explained the agitation she had displayed.

  “Good job,” I whispered with a wink before I turned and fled down the alley, pulling her hoodie on as I went. I looked over my shoulder once before turning the corner and saw the two men jogging into the entrance of the alley.

  Like a wool mask, I wrapped the scarf around my neck as my pickpocket strolled casually out of the recessed entrance. She walked past the couriers as if she had just come through the door. Her long brown hair was now spilling over her shoulders and she had my black coat pulled tightly around her neck—the men didn’t even give her a second look as they spotted me turning the corner.

  Perfect, I thought as I dashed down the connecting street.

  When I got to the end of the block, I looked behind me again. Still in pursuit, the two men lagged behind me by only fifty yards. I was about to turn onto the next street when the black sedan skidded to a halt directly in front of me at the corner, cutting off my path.

  Slam! I bounced off the side door of the car. Changing direction, I ran through the open door of the office building I had just passed. My heart was pumping fresh loads of adrenaline through my body as I searched for the staircase. A moment of panic set in, making me feel trapped.

  “Shit,” I muttered, but then I spotted the stairwell.

  I dashed through and up the stairs, letting the echo of my feet realign my focus on the task rather than my pulse and panic.

  When I reached the top floor, I heard footsteps entering the well below. They were pounding up the stairs behind me. Before exiting the stairwell at the top floor, I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall, swinging it against the doorknob. After two solid whacks, it clattered to the ground. I knew they’d heard it, but the noise was worth it to slow them down.

  I let the door close behind me before joggi
ng down the corridor, looking for the roof access.

  “Where are you?” I muttered as I ran down the long hallway, looking down each connecting corridor I passed.

  I nearly fell over doubling back after I spotted the ladder to the roof.

  “There you are.”

  By the time I reached it, I could hear the sound of someone slamming into the stairwell door. I almost chuckled, imagining their sore shoulders as they tried to smash the metal door open in the wrong direction…they would have to find a way to turn the latch if they wanted to open it.

  Then I heard gunshots.

  “Or that,” I muttered as I pushed the roof access panel open and jumped through. Why would they risk so much attention over a stolen wallet?

  I was nearly to the end of the building’s gravel roof when I heard the squeak of the metal door. I looked over my shoulder. The first courier emerged from the opening and looked around before spotting me at the edge.

  Shit.

  Without pause, I jumped down to the next building. The pitch of the long roof was steep and I slid toward the edge. I thumped to my side as my feet slipped from beneath me. It was all I could do to aim my descent, but as I slid past a roof-mounted step bolted to the tile, a pursuer leaned over the edge of the building.

  “Arrêt!” he yelled.

  I took a deep breath and released my grip, sliding all the way to the bottom of the pitched roof. The gutter was, thankfully substantial, and when I grasped it tumbling over the edge, the momentum of my fall was more than enough to fling me forward, smashing through the window beneath. I fell with a heavy thud on the floor of an upstairs hallway. The aluminum and glass of the window gouged and tore at my flesh beneath my clothing. I was really missing my heavy wool coat at that moment.

  I immediately got up and ran to the end of the hallway, smashing through the stairwell door. A scream from two passersby didn’t slow my flight down the stairs to the street. Angry French voices followed me all the way down.