The Identity Thief (6 page)

"I don't trust these things anyway," the husband said grumpily.

"Jon ... "

"Okay, okay! Can barely see the numbers."

The husband punched in a four-digit code, opened the safe and stuck in his wallet.

A moment later, the room door slammed shut. X, crouching in the left corner of the closet with the light bulb in his hand, breathed again.

He exited the closet and headed straight for the bedroom. He hurriedly ripped off the turban and false beard and stuffed them in a night table drawer. The man's black shoes fit fine; the sleeves of the jacket were a bit short. X rolled up them up.

Learning a hotel safe's code by recognizing the distinct tone of each key as it's punched in was a trick he'd learned ages ago. He popped open the safe and retrieved hubby's wallet from its hiding place. Jon Preston, the Arizona driver's license read. Also in the wallet was an official-looking badge. Tucson Police Department.

Christ almighty, the guy is a cop!

There was $400 cash and assorted credit cards. X stuffed the wallet in his pants pocket. There was a holstered .45 in the night table. Even in a state of panic, X was not tempted to take it. He found a cell phone plugged in and hurriedly punched in Samantha's number. On the third ring she answered.

"Sam, remember to pick up my medicine," he told her.

"What, why?" she demanded.

"Can't talk now," he shot back and hung up.

That was another code phrase. Within 15 minutes, Sam would have vanished from the apartment. The operation had blown up in X's face and it felt as if his world was crashing down on him, but he had an ace in the hole: Steven Holdenbrook.

Steven Holdenbrook was X's ultimate creation. An identity so perfect, so complete, that X could step into it and disappear forever. In a parking garage of the Trump Casino, walking distance away, was a green Ferrari. In the glove compartment lay stashed $100,000 cash and documents authenticating his identity as Steven Holdenbrook. X thought of that car, always parked near a "jobsite," as his lifeboat. If he could get there he would be safe. Of course, that left the minor task of first getting out of this building.

He looked out the peephole and, seeing no one in the hall, ventured out.

X pressed the button for the inclinator, and stood trying not to tremble while he waited. The agents must still be checking out the floors above, he thought. They never could have imagined he made it down three stories. But they'd be down here any second.

The inclinator arrived and though it was crowded, X pushed his way in - earning him a look of chagrin from a porky occupant in a Michael Moore baseball cap and his equally chunky bride, who couldn't spare much space. He maneuvered to the back. Just as the glass doors whooshed shut, X saw a half dozen agents emerge from a stairwell into the hall.

X ducked down so that he was concealed behind the obese pair and the inclinator continued its descent. From his vantage point looking down through the glass he could see dozens of agents swarming through the casino.

What in blue blazes is going on?

He was a small-time con man. Okay, maybe a big-time one, this was no occasion for false modesty. What could possibly make him so important to the Justice Department? Whatever hopes he had nursed of simply walking out through the front door were dashed.

X crossed the casino floor, where an unusual number of uniformed security guards as well as men his practiced eye identified as undercover security personnel were also roaming. He approached a beefy, mustachioed security guard.

"What's going on?" X demanded in as tough a Southwestern voice as he could muster.

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, all this heat."

"I can't tell you anything, sir."

X flashed the Tucson police badge.

"Hey, I'm a cop, cut me some slack."

The guard leaned down and whispered confidentially, "Department of Homeland Security operation. There's some kind of terrorist loose. A high-value target." He didn't look bright enough to know precisely what "high-value target" meant.

X felt his blood run cold. Some kind of terrorist. So THAT explained the Gestapo-type raid.

What exactly was going on now came to him in a rush. Ali Nazeer's carefree-playboy persona was merely a ruse. He was actually some jihadist Scarlet Pimpernel. X couldn't believe his ill fortune. What were the odds, of all the thousands of potential marks that came into his sights in a year, that he would have chosen this one!

"What does he look like?"

The guard looked around, then showed him a black and white printout of X's bearded face and turbaned head caught earlier that day by a security camera.

"I'll be on the lookout," X said, trying hard not to stagger as they parted company. "I'll keep it on the down low."

X drifted into the casino, plopped down at a slot machine and started mechanically feeding in dollar bills. If Nazeer was a terror suspect there were agents at every exit. Worse still, he also knew that agents must be glued to monitors in the security station, where images were being beamed back from cameras trained at every foot of the casino floor, offering multiple angles on every gambler. He couldn't sit there indefinitely.

Suddenly aware that someone had sidled up beside him, X almost jumped out of his skin.

"Cocktail, sir?" asked a smiling waitress holding a tray of drinks. The strongest drink imaginable would seem in order, under the circumstances.

He nodded. "Scotch on the rocks."

In the periphery of his vision, he saw men moving through the casino, methodically checking out aisle after aisle, like a pack of wolves sniffing out prey. It would be only a matter of minutes, or perhaps seconds. The inclinators were frozen, he noted - the lawmen had shut them down.

The waitress was back with the drink in under a minute. X gulped it down and sadly, it did little to steady his nerves.
Even heroin might not.

A voice came over the loudspeaker, crackling and barely audible over the din of the one-armed bandits: "Tours are beginning of King Tut's tomb in five minutes."

Hurrying to the lobby, X joined the tour group, which included a couple struggling to ride herd over four excited kids, a trio of middle-aged women and five Japanese tourists. As they entered the dark series of chambers, X felt a momentary relief. The place was as cool, dark and tranquil as, well, a tomb. He felt as if he had magically escaped to another place and time.

"In November 1922, the British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered beneath the Valley of the Kings the long-lost tomb of King Tutankhamun," the youthful male tour guide intoned in a reedy tenor, as they clattered across the stone floor into the first chamber. Melodramatic prerecorded music accompanied his spiel.

"He had to break through four doors to get to the burial chamber. In the first was the greatest collection of Egyptian antiquities ever discovered. This is a replica of the first chamber and many of the artifacts."

As X's eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room emerged, including statues of strange animals and gods, many of them painted gold.

"On your left is a statue of the god Ptah. This golden vase is in the shape of an ibex and beside it is an alabaster jar in the form of a lion," the guide was saying.

"Beyond this antechamber, breaking through another wall," continued the guide, "the archaeologists found a smaller room filled with equally magnificent treasures.

"Finally Carter broke through a fourth sealed door into the holiest of holies, the burial chamber of King Tut." With a dramatic gesture, the geeky youth flung open a heavy door.

In the center of the fourth room, a huge yellow sarcophagus stood on a dais. Inside was a remarkably convincing replica of the anthropoid coffin X had seen a dozen times on covers of magazines like National Geographic.

"The lid of the coffin itself is carved in high relief with an image of the dead king as the god Osiris," the guide went on. "His arms, crossed on the chest, clutch the twin symbols of kingship, the scepter and the flail. The divine cobra of Lower Egypt and the vulture goddess of Upper Egypt, rise from the king's forehead.

"Attached to the mummy were more than 100 small items placed in accordance with the famous Book of the Dead to ensure the king's safe passage into the afterlife.

"In the next room, we'll see replicas of some of those items."

As they passed through the doorway into the next room, X was almost curious about what they'd see.

Not a bad tour, really.
He'd been very fond of field trips to museums in grade school, with the wondrous though fleeting escape they offered.

X spied a quartet of agents entering from the far side of the chamber. He ducked behind a column, and then doubled back, making his way quickly to the start of the exhibit.

Well, hello.

Two more agents stood guarding the entrance, their backs to him.
Just dandy.
He turned again, hurried back into the faux tomb - and there he saw his one and only chance.

With some effort X pushed aside the lid of King Tut's coffin; thankfully, it was made of some kind of Styrofoam, not stone. To his relief, the designers of the exhibit had been insufficiently fixated on authenticity to include a real mummy. He climbed in and gingerly slid the lid back in place.

As the darkness settled in around him, X's claustrophobia flared up. It felt as if he had been buried alive.
Is this thing airtight,
he wondered, panic rising. He lay there in silence, listening to the footsteps of the tour group retreat. How long was he going to have to stay here? Hours?

Perhaps not so long. He heard gruff male voices nearby.

"Check out everything. Malloy swears he saw him sneak in with a tour group."

FBI agents might not be rocket scientists, but how long could it be before they thought of looking in the coffin? X had to act and act quickly. The identity thief slipped the purloined cell phone out of his pocket and called the hotel's front desk.

"Can you transfer me to security?" he whispered. When he got casino security, he asked to speak with the chief.

"Chief Royton here."

"This is Agent Malloy," he said in a low voice, trying not to whisper. (He was a gifted mimic, but had only heard Malloy utter one sentence). "We've ascertained that the suspect has some kind of dirty bomb," he said. "We have to get everyone out right now."

"I can't authorize the evacuation," Chief Royton said, aghast. "I'd need permission from the manager."

"Remember what happened on 9/11, when companies ordered employees back to their desks. Do you want that on your conscience? Order the evacuation - now," X demanded sharply.

"All right. All right."

X waited in the darkness, listening to the footsteps of agents on the stone floor. Two sets of footfalls approached the coffin.

"Larry, give me a hand with this."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm serious. Remember the perp we caught hiding in a washing machine?"

X was almost relieved to be caught - anything to get out of this suffocating box. The lid began to move above him and a shaft of light poured in.

Then a voice boomed over the speaker: "All guests and employees of the Giza Hotel and Casino. We ask that you please exit the building in a calm and orderly manner."

"What the heck?" said one of the agents.

He heard their footsteps clattering as they dashed from the chamber. X climbed out of the coffin and hurried through the dark chamber and out to the lobby. He joined the throng of people flooding toward the exit.

Despite the call for calm, most of the guests and casino workers were savvy enough to know this was an emergency. A fire at the least. X was shoulder to shoulder with topless showgirls, gamblers with drinks still in their hands and a few guests still in their underwear.

As X neared the door, he saw a pair of guards who looked as if they might have played professional football in their younger days. They were trying to check people as they passed through, but the crowd was shoving so hard it was impossible to see everyone's face.

He was so certain he'd be nabbed, he nearly shut his eyes again. But the crowd pushed him past the agents into the street.

"Nobody else gets out," he heard a voice shout. He could hear a howl of protest from inside the casino as the doors were shut behind him.

Adopting what he hoped was an air of nonchalance, X boarded a moving sidewalk headed toward to the monorail station. The Giza was one of three hotels connected by monorail service, and to the best of X's recollection from his quick glance at the brochure, there were trains arriving every three minutes. The sidewalk moved so slowly X was tempted to race-walk on it. But of course he didn't dare do anything but stand perfectly still and stare directly ahead, like a horse in blinders.