Storm Front

“Yes, do you know what this is?” Storm asked, holding out the credit card. The man squinted at it for a brief moment, and Storm continued. “Actually, let me just save you the time. It’s an American Express Centurion Card, sometimes referred to as the American Express Black Card, for obvious reasons. It is the rarest credit card in the world, and it is only issued to individuals with a net worth of at least twenty million dollars. There is a rumor that it has no limit, but that’s actually not true. The last time I checked, the limit was about six million. Point is, it’s a lot.

“This is Mr. Whitely Cracker,” Storm continued. “As you can see from the lettering on the front, he is the holder of this card. He would like to buy two of your fine used automobiles, and he would like to do it very, very quickly. Can you help us with this transaction, or do we have to take our black card elsewhere?”

The man’s eyes had come to life. He didn’t need the Cliffs-Notes version of what Storm had just laid out. He was about to sell two cars — probably two more than he had sold in the two weeks leading up to this. “No,” he said. “I think I can help you.”

“Great. What’s the most expensive car you have?”

“I got an oh-four BMW five series,” he said. “It’s under forty thousand miles. I got it for sale at twenty-one. It’s just out there if you want to have a look.”

“No need. He’ll take it. And please charge him double. What else?”

“I got an oh-five Cadillac STS. It’s got a little bit of a—”

“No good. Do you have any Fords?”

“I got a two-year-old Fiesta, low miles, for thirteen five.”

“He’ll take it. Please charge him triple.”

“Uh… okay,” the guy said and was already banging the numeric pad of an ancient desk calculator. “With tax, that comes to ninety-two thousand, three hundred and—”

“Make it an even hundred thousand,” Storm said, handing him the card. “I dislike haggling. But we’re going to drive them out of here in the next three minutes.”

“You’re the boss.”

“Do they have gas in them?” Storm asked, handing him the card.

“Yes, sir. Full tanks. I’m going to need his signature on some—”

“Forge it. Just get us the keys as quickly as possible.”

“Give me two minutes,” he said, shuffling with a little more alacrity toward a computer in the back room.

Cracker waited until the man was out of the room, then said, “Can I ask a question now?”

“Make it quick.”

“Why two cars?”

“Sorry to tell you this, mate, but we’ve got to split up the band. You’re going to get your passport and get yourself to Newark Airport, like the man said. I suggest you drive quite quickly if you’re going to make it in time. Just make sure you keep your cell phone on in case I need to contact you.”

“And where are you going?”

“Bayonne.”

“Bayonne? As in New Jersey?”

“Yes,” Storm said. “I hear it’s lovely this time of year.”

CHAPTER 32

BAYONNE, New Jersey

Storm’s plan started with one basic, unassailable assumption.

Volkov was lying.

This was based on experience, intuition, and homespun common sense. It’s like Carl Storm always said: If a man like Volkov said there was a rat on the moon, don’t bring cheese.

So it was that Derrick Storm assumed that the meeting at the international terminal, the passport, the stern warnings about not utilizing the No-Fly List — it was all a ruse to make him think that Cracker was going to be smuggled out of the country to join his family in some foreign locale, where the awful deed would be done.

That, of course, meant that Cracker was unlikely to make it out of New Jersey; that his family was likely there already, holed up in the abandoned factory that Volkov believed no one knew about; that Volkov had probably set up the MonEx 4000 there and had it ready to roll.

As Storm pulled away from the used car lot, he had texted Agent Kevin Bryan: “Volkov Bayonne location still occupied?”

Shortly into his drive, Storm got the reply: “Affirmative. Infrared shows fourteen life forms in building. Helicopter now gone. Must have been a renter.”

Storm yearned to have the full support of Jedediah Jones and the nerds — not just furtive texting with one agent — but had roughed it without Jones’s resources before. He could do it again. Besides, he knew what involving Jones would look like. With two phone calls, Jones could get everything from the Green Berets to Navy Seal Team 6 dropping in on the building from all sides. It would make for dozens of chances for things to get screwed up. At least working alone, Storm thought wryly, there would only be one chance.

He got off Exit 14A of the New Jersey Turnpike Extension, letting the GPS in his phone guide him through a warren of streets with numeric names in an industrial part of town. Gentrification had come to many previously rusty parts of New Jersey, with the proximity to Manhattan driving a real estate boom that transformed places like Hoboken and Jersey City with condos and office buildings.