i was with someone, all right?
hector, i hardly know the guy. why be impolite to strangers?
yeh, well, they didn't insure it, so they don't have to solve this. to them it's a crime. to us it's 24 mil, less re-insurance, which is.
he came in through the window.
what's not possible is entry through the doors or the vents. that would have triggered instant alarm.
only for trauma. they used smart glass, where the sensors respond to violation of the panel's integrity.
i think he scaled the wall, popped the frame. in one piece.
then, he only had to deal with heat and motion sensors. they were on 60-second delay, so the owner wouldn't trigger the alarm just be walking arou.
this particular guy is the best. the best there ever was.
here's how i figured it out.
no one arranges flowers like that. it was the draft from the window.
andrew macdougal.
because they couldn't do it.
maybe not. no one ever proved, hell, even arrested him, for stealing anything. but we all know he was numero ichiban for thirty years. why not forty?
a list of his private collection. complete to three acquisitions last thursday.
don't be a putz. this is his legitimate collection, which he buys. presentable for any search warrant surprise party.
what he rips off, he fences. and the money feeds his portfolio of investments, which are daring, savvy, and obscenely succesf.
you love to embarrass yourself.
the auction. where our client bought the painting.
ashcroft hall, buckinghamshire, four weeks ago.
staking it out. why bid, when you can mark the buyer, and jack it within the month?
at this moment, he is winging on jal flight 307 to narita, ostensibly to attend a prestigious auction at the hotel akura, which will include a mixed media collage. oil by georges braques, on which he supposedly has his eye.
bet your ass. at vegas odds.
research reveals three known fences, still at large, who are believed to have brokered vermeers to black market buyers. sandrine palmer is hospitalized in malta with ovarian cancer.
the other two. live in tokyo.
uh. i'm showing off.
no, you can't.
gin, actually, gin romay. i was named after a card game.
you're supposed to be charming.
in mint condition.
look, i've studied you, i know.  pretty much. everything.
made your first millions selling scrap metal. then, gold mining concessions, gems, art, and lately strategic metals for new technologies - platinum, zirconium, titanium.
the cat burglar stories? why would anyone. with so much to lose. take those kinds of risks?
you'd have to be. stupid.
i didn't know porsche made things like this.
recognize that?
my seller is in shinjuku, we can go there tonight.
he wants 4.6 million. i can get it for three.
i'm staying here, what's your excuse?
sure.
okay. i'll wait here.
that's my purse.
are you all right?
you're going to need stitches, let me get you to a hospital.
really, this can all wait. i'll handle it.
mr. macdougal? sir?
uh. mr. ma.
i was worried, it's been twenty.
woozy.
microchips, i think, for computers.
this isn't the way to my sel.
mind telling me why?
well, we can tr.
so where are we g.
you forgot your lugg.
sensible. and you're off to?
i did so hope to impress you.
here. a reward.
for not being old. after all.
do i deserve a reward?
it's so hard to find good casual sex, anymore. i'm probably out of practice.
it's lucky we stopped by my room, for the wine.
otherwise, we'd never have found my bag was stolen. until tomorrow.
they even got my prescriptions.
i take prilosec. for stomach acid. and an inhaler. for asthma.
but since i didn't have to work all that hard tonight.
why would someone steal my luggage? every guest in this place must have more than a wannabe art dealer.
such as.
he thought i had a stolen painting. in my bag.
excuse me?
you said. vermeer.
i love a guy who knows how to sweet talk.
me.
thought i already did th.
stolen painting is it?
i think there's some mista.
i'm from mac.
you first.
now bring me the real one.
actually. it's incredibly cool!
we're gonna die, aren't we?
faster, not slower, you twit!!
i guess you're gonna explain all this, huh?
i'm supposed to change? here??
there are a million sailors!
business, huh?
uh. am i gonna like th.
training for wha.
and if i refuse?
i mean, you won't really kill me, i'm far too adorable.
what could you possibly steal in 18 min.
you hate round num.
that's entrapment.
fuck you.
accompanied by related foreplay.
i like this.
sound mathematics.
but dearest, in five months, we'll be in cape town.
at your insistence, i'm leaping to my death, and i don't know why!
i'm not jumping until you talk about this, it's been two days!
why are we going in three weeks, if the wine is on a different route months lat.
i knew that.
the machine in those diagrams. on the back of the painting.
what does it do, make gold?
why won't you trust me?
why would a cop do all th.
mac, i'm afraid.
of you.
next time, i'm on top!
what the hell are we building?
get your fucking equipment together, man, this is a professional operation!!
where does this fit in the game plan?
shit.
did i say shit?
this one, i will not get!
this is oh-four-six-one. hector cruz, please, on a secure line.
thank y.
no way i'm telling you shit.
right now, you're more dangerous than he is.
if i tell you what this is, and where this is, you'll send back-up, and those morons will blow my cover, and i'll be too dead to accept your apology.
right to the wall.
only romantically. i'll write to him in prison.
ooooo. is that a promise?
nope. i'm headed back to the hot tub. i'll call again, if i'm in the mood.
i'm freezing my tender parts.
i never liked you.
one act of fucking human kindness.
and how does this fit into the game pl.
i'm partial to drummers. if they played with clapton and winwood.
the prescription bottle. when you stole my suitcase.
armand baker was my husband, may 13 to october 27, 1982, he played alto sax, i was 17 years old.
he named me ginger. he likes drummers, too.
i have i.d. in that name. i use it for various things i don't want traced. when credit unions turn their computers my way.
would you pay it?
the machine. that we are stealing. makes diamonds?
real ones?
i hate it. when you make a point.
and never been kissed.
are you dumping fuel?
and how do i judge that? babe's intuition?
so i just ask you on the way down? or were you planning to e-mail me.
flare, flare.
do it! go!
if you fucking insist!
boy, i'll bet you were in shape before you got old.
i can take it from here, thanks.
if you'd packed my primary chute right, i wouldn't ha.
i know i packed it.
how do you know that's it?
i'm just finishing your sentence. can't you answer a question with- out making me feel stupid?
okay, it was a dumb ques.
where you g.
that's my assignm.
won't they hear it?
how many tries do i get?
you gotta work on that impatient streak.
uh. thing on the left is the brakes?
mac, it's jammed!
activa.
um.
i wouldn't do that.
well. i saw our suction things. lying. over. there?
or maybe. i put 'em there.
oh my g.
watch the old guy stuff, they don't have dimestores anym.
you said 'contract'.
oh, i wish you had. we love having strangers join us! maybe later?
yeh. anyway, before you get too choked up on the farewell. i feel i owe you a confession.
time has come to tell you. what business. i'm actually in.
yeh. i'm not an art dealer.
i'm a thief, mac.
for five years, i've used the database of every client webber has to plan my jobs. museums, banks, jewelers, rich people, i have floor plans, alarm codes, passwords, the works.
i've made a fortune. it's not enough.
why wasn't it enough for you?
the vermeer that was stolen from hancock tower? that was my job. i scaled the building with electromagnets, and parachuted down an air vent.
after mailing the painting. to where we're going next, actua.
yeh, we. you passed the audition.
i need a partner. for the biggest, smartest, job. ever. the one you retire off of, because nothing else could ever compare with the rush.
this is a job that can only be done in one place, in one split-second in human history. if we miss that instant. we lose.
eight billion dollars. that's eight thousand million.
you're not a real trusting guy.
it's two jobs. the first steals something priceless from the national palace museum in taipei. we don't keep that. we trade it in for our ticket to the show.
midnight, july 1, 1997. eight days from now. the moment that hong kong is annexed by china.
80-20 split.
my 80, your 20. asshole.
hold the record. alone.
i like what you left. in the hold.
a lump of coal. a pair of pliers. a note that said, 'squeeze hard'.
squeeze hard.
that's madame chiang kaishek, she's my bud. an evil streak a mile wide.
i have a lot on my mind.
you wanna buy a vermeer?
been there, done that.
national palace museum, taipei, taiwan. repository of four thousand years of chinese culture.
works of gold, bronze, jade, onyx, pots and scrolls, paintings and porcelains and lacquer work. every treasure the kuomintang could loot before the reds took over. ever rob the place?
you need to eat something, or are you ready for sex?
it's a joke. you know, a joke? people who have a sense of humor make them?
you're rich, go buy an american, have him fill you in on the culture.
nice. when a sky is that.
because the museum displays 10,000 relics at any given moment. but there are 60 times that many, stored in the mountain.
which is why it's guarded. by an army.
the train shuttles relics to and from storage. it looks exactly like that.
i've been down the air ducts four times. the train always has two armed guards. always travels between 32 and 36 miles per hour. relics don't like to be jostled too much.
we go down the first. back up the third, if you're lucky. if not, we have to get out by the fourth.
electromagnets, incredibly powerful. this switch is on-off.
well, it's an eight billion dollar jump. you miss the train. you've missed the train.
we've got five days to grab the bones, trade them for the scan, and pull our 8 billion out of hong kong. once midnight passes on july 1st.
oh. have i neglected to fill in the details?
which i learned from the master. hey. wish me luck.
be my fucking guest.
know a dude named wiley coyote?
isn't it easier now? not pretending?
five years, you won't need make-up.
overkill. i can do it with legs.
the oracle bones date back to the shang dynasty, 3500 years ago. they are writings. carved into ox bones, tortoise shells.
the oldest chinese writing any- where, the first proof of chinese civilization.
there we are.
last year, ancient artifacts were discovered in the gulf of mexico. an olmec civilization, 3200 years old.
amazingly, markings on these olmec figures were identified as shang dynasty writing.
this particular bone is price- less, because it is the one that establishes the link. proves that american civilizations descend from chinese ancestors.
exactly the kind of propaganda shit they eat up in beijing. the mainland would pay anything to get its paws on th.
no, i don't think that way.
and i suppose you do?
be real. you could never see yourself. you know, quitting the game. settling. down.
i don't need th.
we have to abort!
there's the fourth!
our last chance, the fifth is at the barracks!
what about you?
you like wha.
you're on a 'need to know' basis. you'll get each step in time to execute, i thought you agreed to those condit.
i trust you. i only need to.
colonel
of course.
col. qiu lai chuen, this is andrew macdougal.
real names here, darling. the colonel and i have every incentive to keep each other's secrets.
the colonel has divorced his wife. to facilitate the necessary entertaining of western women.
the colonel told his minister of culture that he could mount a surgical raid to liberate this treasure from taiwan.
how do i look, honey?
in the hong kong and shanghai bank building. is a room with two computers. one for you. and one for me.
the room is a vault on the 14th floor. access codes to that room are changed daily, computer pass- words on the hour, but.
four men in the world. don't need codes. their retinas will scan to unlock everything. one of these is china's minister of finance.
hong kong has a huge portion of its holdings invested in foreign banks. in hundreds of separate accounts.
this cd rom is programmed to send, instantaneously, thousands of instruc- tions, with all necessary confirmation codes, to transfer reasonably modest sums out of those accounts.
two or three million at a crack, in odd numbers. total, eight billion. and change.
every wire transfer gets rocketed through a series of multiple switches, austria, uruguay, antigua, the channel islands, the caymans.
thank you. as soon as each deposit lands somewhere, it's shot somewhere else, til the mafia couldn't find it.
nope. the cd instructs the computer to erase the real transactions. and replace them in its memory with an innocuous loan coded xj6. little homage to limeyland, there.
wrong. the cd instructs the computer to over-report all account totals forever, in the exact amounts we've lifted. so the chinese think the money's still there.
sure, the foreign banks know they sent out some money. but they think hong kong knows it, too. and since we're leaving plenty in every account.
and then. comes the really brilliant part of the whole thing!
admit it, so far you're blown away.
bet you say that. to all the one-night-stands.
well, i promised him a bonus. five million. comes out of your share.
what's your point?
uploading. and you've got.  two minutes, fifty seconds.
china will think it happened before midnight. britain will swear it happened after midnight.
britain off-line in 18 seconds. we're bulletproof.
the cd won't come out of the driver.
we can't leave it in there, it's got all our accounts, everything that can nail us to a goddam cross!!
there's a rush.
let's move it, what are you
we can't help it, we. we've gotta.
what a guy.
they don't know we're the bad guys.
okay. how do we get down?
okay, now what?
mac, i'm sorry.
turns out, i'm a screw-up.
i can't do this.
hey!
i thought you could. hot-wire stuff?
shit! don't do that!
you're not gonna lower me over the side.
god, i hate you.
all the transactions, all the transfers. it's a miracle.
the colonel says police have nothing. a man in black-tie, a blonde in a gown. the elevator guards saw faces, but no mug shots to id. i think it's over.
well, one hopes not. the bristol, huh? in. paris?
not hardly. i've arranged to be killed in a car crash. on taipei. amazing how little it costs.
i could arrange for two. in that crash.
woman of mystery. what do you say? i like the bristol, just fine. mean, it's not the ritz.
not the most flattering way to put it.
mine.
mac, wh.
and all the. microchips, the diamond machine.
i thought. everything was real. stupid girl.
those were your jobs, so i could have claimed entrapment. you had to wait. for mine.
the oracle bone.
and the 5 billion.
and my tickets. in the shopping bag?
if.
but you couldn't do that, huh?
otherwise. they wouldn't be here.
lots. of thoughts, you s.
oughta shoot you in the face.
no way. not anymore.
when do i see you?