Chapter 92: The Con
"So the play is — we sell Amando a building we don't own. He wires the money, we trace the account, we freeze his overseas assets."
"The building exists," Sarah said. "We just don't own it. And we need him to wire at least ten million to make the account trace viable."
"So we're selling a real building that belongs to someone else," Simon said.
"Yes."
Casey, Sarah, and Simon were in the briefing room. The mission outline was on the table between them.
Simon thought about it for a moment. "We need a temporary office space to sell the pitch. We need someone playing the seller — a principal, convincing, with authority. We need someone as a middleman to make the introduction. And we need a third person for logistical support." He paused. "Who's running the con?"
Both Casey and Sarah looked at him.
"You've done this before?" Sarah said.
"I've watched it done," Simon said, which was technically accurate.
"Interesting," Casey said. He had the expression of a man arriving at a conclusion he'd been moving toward for a while.
"We're still using my father," Sarah said, with the finality of someone who had made this decision before the meeting started and was informing rather than consulting.
"Understood," Simon said. "I'll follow his lead."
The introduction happened at the yogurt shop the next morning.
Sarah's father — Burton, according to his preferred alias — was a man in his late fifties who moved through the world with the specific energy of someone who had spent a lifetime making people comfortable while taking things from them. He was good at it. Simon recognized the skill set immediately, because it was a different kind of fieldwork than Casey's or Sarah's but equally practiced.
Burton looked at the assembled group.
He pointed at Casey. "Police face."
Casey's expression didn't change.
He pointed at Simon. "Too young. Too clean." He looked at Simon directly. "Are you actually an adult?"
"As of a few months ago," Simon said.
Burton processed this, then pulled Sarah aside. A brief conversation. He came back with a working plan.
"Sarah and I handle the pitch. We're the principals. Police face—" he nodded at Casey "—you're security. Visible, positioned at the entrance, don't talk. Boy—" to Simon "—you're our backstop. Stairwells, communication relay, intervention if we need time bought."
"Our accounts for the transfer," Casey said, sliding a paper across the table. "Non-negotiable. We don't use yours."
Burton looked at the paper. "Fair enough. I'd do the same."
"What do I do?" Chuck said.
Everyone looked at him.
"Think of it as your hardest assignment," Burton said. "You sit at the conference table and you don't say a single word. Not one. You're there for presence, not for dialogue."
Chuck absorbed this.
"Specifically," Burton added, "no German phrases. Whatever you were thinking about German phrases — no."
"I wasn't—" Chuck started.
"You were," Burton said. "I could see it."
He spread a hand-drawn layout on the table. "First problem. The building we're using has tenants on the target floor. We need it empty for at least two hours."
"How?" Simon said.
"Extermination company." Burton said it with the calm of someone for whom this was a solved problem. "We come in with equipment, we tell them there's been a fumigation order, we evacuate the floor."
"Someone will call the building manager within fifteen minutes," Simon said.
"We need twelve," Burton said. "That's enough."
Simon considered this. The timeline was tight but not impossible. "Okay."
"Second problem. The company signage needs to change. We're converting the floor into Lichtenstein Capital for approximately ninety minutes." Burton looked at his watch. "Which means we need to move today, because Amando's people confirmed the meeting for this afternoon."
They changed into the exterminator uniforms in the parking garage — white coveralls, respirator masks, backpacks fitted with equipment that looked functional from a distance and contained paint cans and signage rather than chemicals.
They took the elevator to the thirty-second floor of the Brennan Building in downtown Los Angeles — a commercial high-rise that was, for the next hour, going to serve as the headquarters of a company that did not exist.
Chuck stepped off the elevator first.
"Attention — everyone on this floor, please evacuate immediately." He projected well, Simon noticed. "We're conducting emergency fumigation. Toxic fumes have already been introduced to the ventilation system."
Sarah picked it up: "Side effects of exposure include respiratory irritation and potential reproductive impact."
Chuck pointed at a man in a suit who appeared to be management. "Sir, the fumigation compound affects sperm viability. I'd recommend immediate evacuation."
The man looked at the space below his belt with the particular alarmed expression of someone receiving information they were not equipped to dismiss.
"Everyone out," he said. "Now. Move."
The floor cleared in four minutes.
Simon's group worked fast — paint rollers on the company name beside the elevator bay, printed signage replacing the existing tenant directory, a temporary reception desk positioned near the entrance with a fabricated corporate logo. The transformation from Harrington Financial to Lichtenstein Capital took twenty-two minutes and would hold up to a two-minute inspection by someone who wasn't looking hard.
"They're in the building," Casey said through the earpiece, from his position at the ground-floor lobby. "Amando and two associates. Elevator, now."
"Simon," Burton said quietly. "Stairwell."
Simon collected the equipment bags, moved to the stairwell, changed into a suit he'd had in a garment bag, and stationed himself at the landing.
He keyed the earpiece. "I'm positioned. What floor are they coming to?"
"Confirmed thirty-second," Casey said.
The meeting, from what Simon could hear through the earpiece, ran forty minutes.
Burton played the reluctant seller — a man being pressured by his partners to liquidate a property he had emotional investment in, willing to consider an offer but not eager to make one. The performance was good. Simon could hear the cadence of it without seeing it, and the cadence was that of someone who had been doing this for decades.
Sarah played the intermediary who had arranged the introduction — warm, credible, providing social cover for both sides of the transaction.
Amando, from the portions Simon could hear, was a man accustomed to being the most powerful person in rooms and behaving accordingly. He wanted the building. He wanted it at a price that suggested he was getting something exclusive. Burton gave him both of those things.
"They're moving to close," Sarah said through the earpiece.
Two minutes later: "Wire is confirmed. Casey?"
"Received," Casey said. "Account data logged. I'm sending it upstairs."
"Someone's coming," Casey added. "Building management, elevator three. Moving."
"Burton," Simon said. "Need two minutes minimum, probably three."
"Understood."
Simon was already in the stairwell, moving.
He came out at the thirtieth floor, crossed to elevator three, pressed the up button, and went back to the stairwell. Then the thirty-first. The thirty-second. He kept going — thirty-third, thirty-fourth, all the way up to the fiftieth, pressing the call button on elevator three at every landing.
He arrived at the fiftieth floor slightly out of breath.
"Elevator three is queued for every floor between thirty and fifty," he said into the earpiece. "Buys you three to four minutes, maybe five."
"We're done," Sarah said. "Meeting over, Amando is moving toward the elevator. Forty floor, we're clearing now."
Simon looked at the sign on the landing wall. FLOOR 50.
He sat down on the steps.
"If it's not too much trouble," he said, "I could use about thirty seconds."
"You have sixty," Casey said. "The elevator's on thirty-four."
Simon counted to forty, stood up, and started down the stairs.
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