Pros and Cons Read Online Free Page B

beside himself to be marrying a total sexpot. And the guests are on the edge of their seats, not sure where to look first, waiting for a nipple slip, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bride’s wedding-day taco. And Nick was happy because all eyes would be glued to Caroline for the next four minutes and eleven seconds. He turned on his heel and met his crew coming out of the kitchen with the trash bags stuffed with packing pellets.
    “You have four minutes, starting now,” Nick said, tapping his watch. “Go!”
    The crew split, working room by room, grabbing idols, packing them safely into the bags, and carting them to the freight elevator off the kitchen and then down to the garage.
    Nick went to Milton’s office, removed a nineteenth-century paintingfrom the wall behind Milton’s desk, and exposed a wall safe. The theft of the golden idols would make splashy news, but the real moneymaker for Nick was a flash drive that Milton kept in his safe. The flash drive held all of the account numbers and passwords to Milton’s offshore bank accounts. Nick took a handful of explosive Semtex putty out of his pocket and applied it to the surface of the safe.

    Kate looked at her watch for the hundredth time. Why wasn’t Jessup calling her? Did he realize time was ticking away? She could hear the band playing twenty floors above her, and half a block away she had two vans filled with agents playing craps and catching up on their Twitter accounts. She went inside the Windsong Building and approached the mountain of a man who was guarding the elevators. She flashed her badge and identified herself.
    “I need to go up,” she said.
    “I bet.”
    “I’m serious.”
    “Nice try. Merrill Stubing, the wedding planner, warned me about you.” The guard held up a photograph of Kate that had been lifted off her sister’s Facebook page. “He said the paparazzi might show up pretending to be feds.”
    Kate looked past the guard and stared at the bank of monitors behind him. A uniformed female caterer was standing at a loading dock in the underground garage. The woman was handing bulging plastic bags to a guy who leaned out of the open rear end of a panel van that said Y UMMY G OOD C ATERING on the side. One of the bags split open, but the guy caught what wasinside before it hit the floor. The object in his hands was a golden head about the size of a honeydew melon. On the monitor, two more caterers emerged from the service elevator and climbed into the van. The back doors of the van closed, and it pulled away. Another Yummy Good Catering van took its place from somewhere else in the garage.
    “Robbery in progress,” Kate said into her Bluetooth earpiece. She was 98 percent sure. “Seal all exits.”
    She turned and ran from the lobby and around the corner of the building to the back alley just as a van was heading for the street. Kate slipped into the garage before the roll-up door could drop down and seal the ramp. The van drove off. The door closed behind her.
    She hurried down the ramp, slowing as she neared the first parking level. The woman was still on the loading dock and was now passing bags to a man in the second van.
    Kate stepped forward, gun drawn. “Halt, FBI.”
    At that same instant the elevator doors opened. Four more caterers came out, saw Kate, and froze.
    “Run!” someone yelled.
    Everyone took off in different directions. Kate couldn’t chase them all, and she couldn’t lawfully shoot any of them, so she shot out the tires of the van instead to make sure it wouldn’t be going anywhere. The Yummy Good Catering van slumped to the ground like a weary cow. The gunshots echoed through the garage.
    Special Agent Gunter was in Kate’s earpiece. “What’s going on down there? I’m in the lobby, and I just saw you shoot a catering truck.”
    “They aren’t caterers. They’re thieves. They’ve scattered in the garage. Detain anyone who tries to leave.”
    Kate stepped into the service elevator and pressed the