13.

Meanwhile, her boyfriend sipped beer and read The Great Gatsby in a hammock on the rear porch, with the beautiful pond just a few feet away. Mark and Trey were out there in a boat, quietly fishing for bream, while Denny tended to the steaks on the grill. At sunset, a cold wind arrived and the four hunters gathered in the den, where a fire was crackling away. At precisely 8:00 p.m., they pulled out their new Sat-Traks and punched in their codes, everybody pecked in the word “Clear,” including Ahmed in Buffalo, and life was secure.

Life was indeed good. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, they were on the campus, hiding in the dark, nervous as hell but also loving the thrill of the chase. Their plan had worked to perfection, they had the priceless manuscripts, and soon they would have the cash. That transfer would not be easy, but they would deal with it later.

14.

The booze helped but sleep was difficult, for all four of them. Early the following morning, as Denny cooked eggs and bacon and guzzled black coffee, Mark sat at the counter with a laptop, scanning headlines from up and down the East Coast. “Nothing,” he said. “Plenty of stuff about the ruckus on campus, now officially labeled as a prank, but not a word about the manuscripts.”

“I’m sure they’re trying to keep it quiet,” Denny said.

“Yes, but for how long?”

“Not long at all. You can’t keep the press away from a story like this. There’ll be a leak today or tomorrow.”

“Can’t decide if that’s good or bad.”

“Neither.”

Trey walked into the kitchen, with a freshly shaved head. He rubbed it proudly and said, “What do you think?”

“Gorgeous,” said Mark.

“Nothing helps,” said Denny.

None of the four looked the same as they had twenty-four hours earlier. Trey and Mark had shaved everything—beard, hair, eyebrows. Denny and Jerry had lost their beards but changed hair colors. Denny had gone from sandy blond to dark brown. Jerry was a soft ginger. All four would be wearing caps and glasses that changed daily. They knew they had been captured on video and they knew about the FBI’s facial recognition technology and its capabilities. They had made mistakes, but their efforts to remember them were rapidly diminishing. It was time to get on with the next phase.

There was also a cockiness that was the natural aftereffect of such a perfect crime. They had first met a year earlier, when Trey and Jerry, the two felons and the most experienced, had been introduced to Denny, who knew Mark, who knew Ahmed. They had spent hours planning and plotting, arguing about who would do what, and when was the best time, and where would they go afterward. A hundred details, some huge, some tiny, but all crucial. Now that the heist was over, all that was history. Before them now lay only the task of collecting the money.

At 8:00 a.m. Thursday, they watched each other go through the Sat-Trak ritual. Ahmed was alive and well. All present and accounted for. Jerry and Mark said good-bye and drove away from the cabin, away from the Poconos, and four hours later entered the outskirts of Rochester. They had no way of knowing the sheer number of FBI agents patiently waiting and watching for the 2010 Toyota pickup truck leased three months earlier. When Jerry parked it near his apartment, hidden cameras zoomed in on him and Mark as they nonchalantly walked across the parking lot and climbed the stairs to the third floor.