Prologue Ten Years Earlier

I wish it didn't have to be this way. That's what I kept saying to myself, throughout the entire ordeal, and long after it was over. But there was never any choice, not really. I did what I had to do. I knew someone would probably end up dead. I just assumed it would be me.

As we embarked on this misbegotten adventure, I checked to make sure my weapon was primed and loaded and simultaneously reminded myself that Schopenhauer postulated the existence of an indifferent universe. An Immanent Will shaping our destiny. Not that the cosmos is actively opposed to us, as some of the nihilists might have you believe, but simply disinterested. There is no such thing as luck, because the concept of luck presupposes a sentient being dealing out favors. So in Schopenhauer's view, the ease with which the whole job went down, at least initially, was due not to providence but merely to the chance occurrence of inconceivable and uncontrollable forces.

As it turned out, Schopenhauer was wrong. I had a huge load of luck coming my way. I just forgot to duck before the inevitable reckoning.

I couldn't believe how simple the break-in was. We bought the costumes at a party shop, for heaven's sake, right next to the pointed hats and the noisemakers. I suppose the dubious authenticity didn't matter--we looked, at least at first sight, like two members of the local police. Flipped the fake IDs Jack had bought and we were inside. I was stunned at the effortlessness of it all. Granted, we weren't breaking into a bank. I didn't expect security at that level. But I expected something, given the value of the merchandise. The lack of security was why Jerry accepted the gig when Renny came calling. This is the second most profitable criminal enterprise in the world, he told me, but the security is no better than what you'd expect at a comic-book convention. Jack didn't care about the merchandise; he certainly had no appreciation for it. It was a job, one he couldn't do alone, so he dragged me along. Into the fire. We are tested by fire; that's what Nietzsche taught. What does not kill us makes us stronger. So I accepted. So I would be stronger. At least I told myself that was the reason. Maybe I just wanted to make enough money that I didn't have to take every petty job that came my way. Maybe I wanted enough money so that the next time I had to make a decision--like the one that took Catherine away from me--I wouldn't make the wrong one.

Must've been the way I carried myself, or the look in my eye, or perhaps the fact that I was way too underweight to be a police officer. Maybe it was my long blond hair, or excessive makeup, or the party-shop shoes that didn't quite fit. I'll never know for certain, but one of the museum guards began scrutinizing me intently almost immediately after we arrived. I knew he was suspicious. And I knew that the more time passed, the more opportunity he would have to do something about it. So I cold-cocked him in the face. Elbow to the nose, sudden flash of searing pain, blood everywhere. His partner reacted, but not fast enough. Jerry flattened him before he could unsnap his holster. A few more blows to the head and they were both laid out on the cold marble floor, their faces looking as if they'd been scraped with sandpaper. That was the problem with these security guys--they didn't really expect trouble. They didn't have the wariness of true beat cops, the subliminal awareness of possible death lurking behind every door. Maybe we were teaching them a lesson, I thought, just as Locke argued that all life, all experience, was instructional. In the future, they would be more careful.

"Have a reason for that,"...

 

"A white-knuckle page-turner . . . Don't start this book when you have something important to do."

 

"Political infighting and backstabbing, Kincaid faces it all."

 

"[William Bernhardt is a] master of the legal thriller."

 

Capitol Threat by William Bernhardt
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