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  The Freeport Robbery

  The Travelers: Book Four

  Michael P. King

  Blurred Lines Press

  Contents

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  1. The Job

  2. The Freeport Vault

  3. On the Run

  4. Nohamay City

  5. The FBI

  6. Cracking the Vault

  7. Returning the Casket

  8. Plan B

  9. Changing Directions

  10. Running the Gauntlet

  11. Promises Kept

  12. Banker’s hours

  Finally . . .

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  The Double Cross

  The Double Cross is a novella-length dark crime thriller that tells the story of how the Travelers met. If you like fast moving action, unpredictable plot twists, and criminal chicanery, you’ll love this prequel to my Travelers series.

  Get a free copy of The Double Cross when you sign up to join my Travelers Readers Group mailing list. Click here to get started: Free Book

  “King’s (The Blackmail Photos, 2016, etc.) fourth outing with the Travelers, a husband-and-wife con artist team, sees them chasing stolen artwork. . .. In this latest go-round . . . readers should already be accustomed to author King’s casual excellence, particularly when it comes to character development. . .. King delivers a solidly written, self-contained thriller that also sets the stage for his cons’ return. Another exceptional account of heart-of-gold con artistry.”—Kirkus Reviews

  Treachery. Conspiracy. Murder. The Travelers, using the names Ron and Nicole Carter, break into a freeport vault to recover a stolen jewelry casket for return to a museum. Easy money. But after they’re ambushed during the break-in, they must recover the casket if they’re going to stay out of prison. And now a vicious gang is hot on their trail . . .

  The Freeport Robbery is a noir crime thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. If you like nonstop action, exciting plot twists, and criminal machinations, you’ll love the fourth installment of Michael P. King’s Travelers series.

  The Travelers

  The Double Cross: A Travelers Prequel

  The Traveling Man: Book One

  The Computer Heist: Book Two

  The Blackmail Photos: Book Three

  The Freeport Robbery: Book Four

  The Kidnap Victim: Book Five

  The Murder Run: Book Six

  Blurred Lines Press

  The Freeport Robbery

  Michael P. King

  ISBN 978-0-9861796-6-2

  Copyright © 2017 by Michael P. King

  All rights reserved

  Cover design by Paramita Bhattacharjee at creativeparamita.com

  The Freeport Robbery is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons or places is entirely coincidental.

  For Sarah, always.

  1

  The Job

  On a Friday afternoon, the Traveling Man, going by the name Ron Carter, sat in his dark blue Cadillac in the cracked asphalt parking lot of the Deal’s Motel, watching the gray steel door to room 127. It was midafternoon. Sunny, with a light breeze. Not a hard day to be watching a door. But his wife, going by the name Nicole, should have come out of the room by now.

  The Deal’s Motel was located in the industrial part of Charles Bay, near the shipping port and the airport. Seagulls picked at trash in the nearly empty parking lot. The green neon vacancy sign in the office window flashed on and off intermittently. Up on the motel’s second floor, one maid, a Latina in a black pantsuit, pushed her cleaning cart along the breezeway to the next room on her list. Ron ran his hand over his unshaven face and back through his gray-black hair. He looked at his watch. Nicole had been in the motel room with their mark for almost an hour. She should have had the credit card codes and the system passwords by now.

  The mark, Pat McCall, a crooked IT manager at a credit card company—a known bad player who traded in credit card information—was, in Ron’s estimation, fair game to be ripped off. Nicole had lured him out of an IT convention and brought him here without the least bit of trouble. But now the timeline was all wrong. McCall didn’t look like the kind of guy who would beat a woman, but woman-beaters rarely did. Ron climbed out of the Cadillac and slipped on his gray suit coat to cover the Smith & Wesson .38 holstered on his hip. If Nicole didn’t show her face in the next few minutes, he was going to knock on the door and do his detective routine.

  In the room, Nicole lay naked with her shoulders back on the bed and her right leg over her left to accentuate the curve of her hips and to let McCall see her ass and her breasts at the same time. It was a porn pose that rarely failed. Her auburn hair lay loose around her shoulders. She was lean and athletic, and although she was forty-five, she appeared to be years younger. What was keeping McCall? Instead of falling asleep after he climbed off her, he’d rushed into the bathroom. So now she was on plan B: stall him until he drank the roofied water on his night table. He’d be knocked out for twelve hours. It would drastically shorten their timeline, but they would still be able to get paid for the codes and passwords before he woke up and figured out they’d been stolen. McCall came out of the bathroom wearing his black-framed glasses, his blond-gray comb-over back in place, and his huge belly hanging over his white boxer shorts.

  Nicole smiled. “What’s your hurry, sweetie? Come back to bed. We’ve got the rest of the afternoon until the mixer.”

  “You still here? Get out.” He pointed at the motel room door.

  “What?”

  “If I wouldn’t leave my laptop in my room at the convention center, what makes you think I’m going to give you a chance to look at it here?”

  She pulled the sheet around herself as she scooted off the bed. “What brought this on? You’re talking completely crazy.”

  “Get out.”

  She scooped her red lace panties and bra up off the dirty shag carpeting and crab-walked to her coffee-colored dress, which was lying over the back of the desk chair. She knew she’d lost her opportunity, but she intended to leave him as confused as possible. She started to cry, sniffling at first as if she were trying to hold it back, and then moving into a full-on crying jag as she went into the bathroom to get dressed.

  “You can’t fool me. I know exactly what you’re up to. I knew the moment you started flirting with me at the opening session.”

  She came out dressed, crying and blowing her nose at the same time. “You’re a bastard. I hope your wife divorces you.” She picked up her high heels.

  “I’m already divorced.”

  “And now we both know why. You can’t screw, and you’ve got a shitty personality.”

  She slammed the door on the way out. She walked three steps on the bare concrete of the breezeway before she bent down to pull on her high heels. “Asshole,” she muttered. She took her cell phone from her handbag and dialed 911. “That little girl on the Amber Alert? I think she just went into a motel room with a man at the Deal’s Motel. Fat guy with thick glasses. Room number 127.”

  She glanced over her shoulder just as McCall came out onto the breezeway in his boxers and grabbed her arm. “You little bitch. Where’s my wallet?”

  “I don’t have your wallet.”

  Ron was about ten feet away from her, moving fast. He stepped around Nicole and gave McCall a push in the chest. McCall’s comb-over fell down in his eyes. He let go of Nicole’s arm. “I’m calling the cops.”

  Ron pointed to McCall’s room and pulled the .38 from under his suit coat. McCall opened his mouth to speak. Ron cocked his head, his face
neutral and his eyes empty. McCall stammered and backed into his room. Ron heard the deadbolt slide home. He turned to Nicole. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Back at their rented apartment, Nicole sat on the tan rent-to-own sofa with her bare feet on the glass coffee table. Ron stood behind her, his sleeves rolled up, massaging her neck.

  “It’s humiliating,” she said. “I thought I had him in the bag, nice little bow on top. I fucked him for nothing. Bad breath and fat-guy smell. The real problem is that he came so fast he never got winded. And now this dress stinks.”

  Ron held her head in both his hands and gently lifted, applying light traction before he slipped her head back and forth between his hands. “Honey, you’re being too hard on yourself. This is the kind of thing that can happen when you deal with low-esteem paranoid types. Guy knew he didn’t rate you. We were on a tight schedule. You didn’t have time to build his ego, make him think he really had the juice.”

  “I’m getting too old.”

  He patted her shoulders, and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. “You’re not too old. You’re a ball-busting siren. No one’s as good at closing the deal as you. But that’s beside the point. You don’t have to be a player if you don’t want to. We could hire a kid to do the seduction. You could do training and help me set the score.”

  She turned and looked up at him. “There’s not going to be another woman in this crew.”

  “She wouldn’t be competition.”

  “No. I won’t share you with a partner. The marks—that’s just work. It doesn’t mean a thing. But with partners—emotions can become too powerful. And it’s always two against one in a threesome.”

  “Do you think any woman could come between us?”

  “I’m serious, Ronny. No new women. I mean it.”

  “Okay, I won’t bring it up again. If you’re uncomfortable doing the seduction, we’ll just make some changes in our game.”

  “But no civilians.”

  “No civilians. Cheating civilians is always more trouble than it’s worth. Especially when there are so many wannabe criminals wandering loose.”

  Nicole stood up. “I’m going to shower.”

  “That dress needs to go to the drycleaner.”

  “I’d rather throw it away.”

  “I know, but we’ve got to be careful with our money until we set up our next gig.”

  “Have you got any leads?”

  “Rickover left a message on my phone. Maybe he’s got something that will tide us over.”

  Nicole sighed. She came around the sofa, heading for the hallway to the bathroom. Ron caught her in his arms. He hugged her, rubbing her back and kissing her neck. “It’s not your fault. It’s all going to work out.”

  “I know. I’m just frustrated.”

  “I love you.”

  “I’ll feel better after I shower.”

  He let go of her. “Think about where you want to go for supper.”

  Saturday at 11:00 a.m., Aaron Rickover stood on the corner of Fifth and Orion in front of the Caffeination coffee shop in downtown Charles Bay, two blocks from police headquarters. The pavement was still damp from a morning rain, and the air smelled of fresh earth. He blew on his coffee between sips. Rickover was an insurance investigator for Metropolitan Assurance Company. He was forty-five, bald with a fringe of gray hair. He always wore wire-rim glasses and a winning smile. Since it was the weekend, he was dressed in new jeans, moccasins, and a blue blazer over a button-down oxford shirt. He’d been working on an investigation that he hoped would make his name and get him the promotion he needed, and now his plan was at a critical juncture.

  A silver Lexus pulled up to the curb in front of him and a big redheaded man in a tight-fitting black suit stepped out of the backseat and held the door open with his heavy, scarred hands. “Get in.”

  Rickover stepped toward the car. The big man shook his head. “No coffee.” Rickover handed the big man his coffee before he climbed into the backseat next to the other occupant. “Mr. Philips. Good to see you.”

  “I wish I could say the same.” Philips smiled like a hangman, his teeth gapped, and his lips rolled under. He wore a beautifully made, charcoal pinstripe suit that almost made him look trim. His wingtip shoes glowed in the gloom of the floorboard. He patted the back of the driver’s seat. “Circle the block, Glen.”

  The Lexus pulled away from the curb, leaving the big man on the sidewalk holding the coffee cup. Rickover sat still, watching Philips, wondering just how angry he was. “Mr. Philips,” he started, “no one was as surprised as me…”

  Philips examined his manicure while he spoke. “No excuses. The painting you sold me was a fake. I want my money back, plus five grand for my trouble.”

  “Five grand?”

  “You took out a loan from me and didn’t even ask. Either that, or you were hoping to cheat me.” He looked into Rickover’s face. “Which point of view would you like me to take?”

  Rickover avoided eye contact. “I don’t have the money, but I’m pulling it together right now. You’ve got my complete attention.”

  “I’m not looking for effort; I’m looking for results. You may not care about your ex, but I bet you still love your kids. What would their lives be like if anything happened to you? It’s a hard world to grow up in without a dad.”

  “Day after tomorrow I’ll have your one hundred thousand.”

  “Really?”

  “At Nohamay City.”

  “The tribal casino?”

  “There’s a freeport there. A client is going to pay me off. I’ll have the cash in hand.”

  The Lexus pulled back to the curb. Philips nodded. “This is your only chance.”

  “I only need one.”

  The big man opened the door. Rickover started to slide out. Philips touched his arm. “Use your time wisely.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Rickover stood on the sidewalk blinking as if he’d been in a dark basement all day. The big man chuckled, slapped him on the shoulder, pushed his coffee cup into his hand, and climbed into the Lexus, which pulled away from the curb. Rickover walked over to the brick wall by the coffee shop’s picture window and stood quietly, his mind empty, trying to get his bearings. He lifted the cup to take a drink, but thought better of it, and tossed the cup into the trash can by the door. A blonde woman wearing an open tan raincoat over a short summer dress came out of the coffee shop. She looked somehow familiar, though he knew he’d never seen her before.

  So far, so good. Philips wanted his money back. He’d threatened him, not his family. All he had to do was get the next part of his plan in play. He got out his phone. “Melody, how are you?”

  “What’s up, Aaron?”

  “Can I come by and see the kids?”

  “It’s not your weekend. We have plans.”

  “Don’t do this to me, Mel. I’ve got to go out of town. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. I might have to miss next weekend.”

  She lowered her voice. “Always the same bullshit with you, trying to blame me for your problems. Your poor planning is not my emergency.”

  “I’ve got to work if you want the child support.”

  “Sure, you need to work, but your family doesn’t have to come last. Your misplaced priorities are not my problem. Sober up and get your life together, or when we go to court next you’ll lose your custody privileges.” She hung up.

  Rickover put his phone back in the pocket of his blazer. Couldn’t she see that he was trying? One mistake. He got caught and now she was going to make him pay forever. Christ. Like she didn’t bear some responsibility. There had to be some reason he fell into bed with Grace, something he’d been missing at home. He should have denied and lied. He might have weathered the storm. Instead, he’d let his guilt get the better of him, and now he had to pay her just to see his kids.

  Later that afternoon, Ron and Nicole sat in Rickover’s office in the Metropolitan Assurance Building in the downtown business district. The office was
ten feet by ten feet, with a window that faced another window across the street. Rickover sat in an adjustable office chair behind a standard metal office desk. His laptop was out in front of him and a stack of file folders lay on the corner of the desk. A framed certificate from the National Insurance Investigator’s Association hung on the wall, and a dark-green, plastic rubber tree covered in a layer of dust pretended to grow from a wooden pot in the back right corner by the window. Ron and Nicole sat in two chrome-framed chairs facing him.

  “So how you been?” Ron asked.

  “I’m okay. Getting things done—know what I mean?”

  “I’ve got to say, Aaron, that you’ve looked better. I’d say you’re putting on weight and drinking too much.”

  Rickover shrugged. “Not used to living alone. But I’m working on it. I’ve been sleeping better. Working my list. Recommitting myself to focusing on my work.”

  Ron nodded. “Good for you. One day at a time.”

  “Yeah,” Rickover said, “one day at a time.” He looked at Nicole. “So how are you two doing?”

  She reached over and squeezed Ron’s hand. “Never better. Sometimes the bumps in the road just make your marriage stronger.”

  Ron gave her a quick smile before he turned back to Rickover. “So I got your message. What’s the big hurry?”

  “This is a really tight timeline. I need for you to do a semi-honest job.”

  Nicole smiled.