They whipped out legal pads and faced her across the table. Janeway began asking questions and it was immediately obvious he knew little about the case. Slowly, painfully, Mercer filled in the blanks.

19.

At 4:50, Mercer, Bradshaw, and Vanno followed Janeway to the chambers of Magistrate Judge Arthur Philby, who greeted them as if they were trespassing. He’d had a rough day and seemed irritable. Mercer sat at one end of another long table next to a court reporter who asked her to raise her right hand and swear to tell the truth. A video camera on a tripod was aimed at the witness. Judge Philby, minus his black robe, sat at the other end like a king on his throne.

For an hour, Janeway and Bradshaw asked her questions, and she told the same story for at least the third time that day. Bradshaw produced large photos of the basement, the vault, and the safe inside. Philby interrupted repeatedly with his own questions, and much of her testimony was repeated more than twice. But she kept her cool, and was often amused by the thought that Bruce Cable was far more likeable than these guys, the good ones.

When she was finished, they wrapped things up and thanked her for her time and efforts. Don’t mention it, she almost said, I’m being paid to be here. She was excused and hurriedly left the building with Elaine, Rick, and Graham. When the federal building was finally behind them, Mercer asked, “So what happens next?”

Elaine said, “They’re preparing the search warrant now. Your testimony was perfect and the judge is convinced.”

“So, when do they attack the bookstore?”

“Soon.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE DELIVERY

1.

Denny had been on the island for ten days and was losing patience. He and Rooker had tracked Cable and knew his movements, a monotonously simple task. They had tracked Mercer too and knew her habits, another easy chore.

Intimidation had worked with Oscar Stein in Boston, and perhaps it was their only plausible tool. Direct confrontation with the threat of violence. As with Stein, Cable could not exactly run to the cops. If he had the manuscripts, he could be coerced into cutting a deal. If he didn’t, then he almost certainly knew where they were.

Cable usually left work around six in the evening and went home. At 5:50 Monday afternoon, Denny entered the store and pretended to browse around. As luck would have it, Cable’s luck that is, he was busy in the basement and his clerks knew not to divulge this.

Denny, though, had just run out of luck. After months of moving seamlessly through airports and customs and security checkpoints, and using fake IDs and passports and disguises, and paying cash when possible for rooms and rentals, he was thinking of himself as quite clever, if not invincible. But even the smartest cons get busted when they drop their guard.

For years the FBI had been perfecting its facial recognition technology, software it referred to as FacePrint. It used an algorithm to calculate the distance between a subject’s eyes, nose, and ears, and in milliseconds applied it to a bank of photos relevant to a particular investigation. In the “Gatsby File,” as the stolen manuscripts case had been nicknamed by the FBI, the bank was comparatively small. It included a dozen photos of the three thieves at the front desk of the Firestone Library, though Jerry Steengarden and Mark Driscoll were in custody. It also included several hundred photos of men known or suspected to be active in the world of stolen art, artifacts, and books.