Chasing the White Lion by James Hannibal (best free e book reader .TXT) 📗

the hanky away. “Sorry. I have some lingering sniffles. Your appointment this evening is with Taner Atan—alleged mob ties, a few dead bodies, but nothing proven. This guy is the Bernie Madoff of Central Europe. Plus he dabbles in black-market commodities like arms and pharmaceuticals. He makes roughly twenty-five million a year for the syndicate with Ponzi schemes, insider trading, and penny-stock shell games, mostly based in the Far East markets. And according to Dark Web chatter, he nearly doubles that figure at the annual Frenzy.”

Tyler joined them, pulling off a respirator that matched Darcy’s. “Atan is the Jungle’s Hyena, the lowest ranking of the top five, and one of only two top players we’ve been able to identify with near certainty.”

“Who else have you identified?” Talia asked.

“Orien Jafet, the Maltese Tiger. He’s a Greek underworld boss. We’ll get to him in Stage Two.”

“Tell me again why you can’t ID the others, Eddie.” Val sat on a couch Mac had brought down from the lodge and crossed her legs. “I thought you could move whole planets with those computers.”

“Satellites. Not planets.” Eddie shot the grifter a get it right frown. “The other two bigwigs—the Clouded Leopard and the Snow Leopard—are hard to nail down. All the top positions are fluid, up for grabs each year. Atan and Jafet fended off the competition the last three Frenzies, making them easier to track.”

The grifter bobbled her head and looked away, as if grudgingly accepting the excuse.

Talia watched the interaction. Clearly she had missed a great deal of discussion. She was playing catch-up. She hated playing catch-up. “I’m having trouble connecting the dots between Atan and the German Silver gag.”

Tyler had the answer, not a very helpful one. “Our mark is an avid numismatist.”

“A what?” Talia asked.

“A numismatist,” called Finn from a table laid out with an odd collection of items—a bowl of ice, a miniature slide, a radar gun. He beckoned them over. “A coin nerd. Or . . . coin geek, right, Eddie?”

A sniffle and a wiggling hanky muffled Eddie’s reply. “Nope. Nerd is correct. Trust me.”

Darcy brought Finn a tray of freshly minted gold coins, and the Aussie lifted one from the tray. “Geek, nerd, whatever. We’re running a coin scam on a coin expert. No easy task. He’s going to test our fake Bavarian Thalers. We’re prepared for everything he can throw at us.”

Tyler shook his head. “Never say that, Finn. It’s unnecessary hubris. The mark can always throw you a curveball.”

“Right. Okay.” The burglar’s cheeks reddened. Talia could see he wanted to argue, but he didn’t and simply moved on. Finn rubbed the coin between his palms and set it on the bowl of ice. It sank like a hot stone. “Test one. Gold has a high thermal conductivity, so it melts through ice quickly, drawing heat from the air.”

“But that’s not gold,” Talia said.

Darcy gave her a lips-parted abracadabra wink. “You are correct. But your chemist is exceptionnel, no?” She picked up a vial marked NITRICACID. “Test two—acid. Pure gold is corrosion proof, so most acids won’t affect it. Other metals are not so fortunate.” Using an eyedropper, she placed a dab of the acid on a copper penny. Fizz bubbled up and the acid turned green. She placed the next drop on one of her coins.

The acid remained clear. Talia let out a mystified huff. “Nothing.” Again, the coin performed like gold.

“Wait, please.” A few seconds later, the drop began to fizz, taking on the same green color as before. “The acid is a persistent foe, yes? A thin layer of epoxy protects these coins, but it will eventually fail. You must keep the mark moving if he tries an acid test.”

“He won’t. He’ll love the idea of the thalers too much.” A hint of a Brooklyn accent invaded Val’s words. It grew stronger as she continued. “Not many men have the guts to pour acid on a two-million dollah coin. Know what I’m sayin’?”

The team turned to look at her. Even Tyler looked disturbed.

“What? You people got a problem?”

They all turned back to Darcy.

The chemist moved down the table to Finn’s miniature slide. “Test three. A much less destructive test involving the magnetic properties of the gold.”

Mac raised a hand. “Gold isn’t magnetic.”

“Exactement.” Darcy held a magnetic cube over the tray of coins, and none of them moved. “However, gold is diamagnetic, interacting in opposition to a magnetic field.” She laid the coin on the miniature slide, and it slowly moved to the bottom, held back by an invisible force.

Talia had seen a similar effect a few days earlier when Tyler played with the magnetic disk and copper tube at Wolf Manor. And Darcy’s coin had reacted to the acid with the same color change as the penny. “Copper,” she said with a quiet chuckle. “You’re using copper to mimic the conductive properties of the gold.”

Darcy touched her nose. “You are like the Sherlock Holmes, no? But copper is much lighter than gold. Any dime-store scale will expose a copper alloy fake like ours. Yet . . .” She placed the coin on one plate of a balance scale and a lead cube marked 1 OZ on the other. The two teetered for a few heartbeats, then settled, perfectly level. Darcy grinned. “Voilà. A tungsten core brings us back into balance.”

While Darcy worked the slide and scales, Finn had been playing with the radar gun at the end of the table. He waggled it in the air, and Darcy nodded. “This brings us to the last and most dangerous test—the XRF, or X-ray fluorescence, gun. Any wealthy numismatist worth his salt will own one.”

“In fact,” Eddie said, walking around the table to stand next to his girlfriend, “Atan’s online purchases confirm he owns this particular make and model.” He ended with a sniffle.

Darcy slid a half step away. “Are you going to do this snuffling, snotty thing the entire job?”

“It’s a cold. What am I supposed to do?”

“Keep it away from me, yes?”

Finn whistled to get their attention and