Entrapment

FADE IN:

EXT. NEW YORK - DECEMBER 1999 - LATE NIGHT

We are moving through a thicket of skyscrapers. In the dim

light we see one building, then its reflection against

another building. We swoop past the Empire State Building lit

in Christmas red and green, catch a glimpse of the Christmas

tree in Rockefeller Center.

On screen we see: NEW YORK CITY DECEMBER 15 1999. High atop a

tall glass building we find another Christmas tree.

We close on the Thief whose face is concealed behind a sleek

black-visored helmet with night-vision goggles. From a pack,

the Thief takes a climbing rope, clamps it with a carabiner

around a post, then dials a distance into the special ratchet

mechanism.

The Thief steps to the edge and LEAPS over, plunging past the

glass windows. After a terrifying free fall, suddenly the

rope gears down smoothly, bringing the Thief to a stop at a

window pane, a dizzying sixty floors above the street.

Through the glass, we see a CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS.

The Thief drills out bolts holding the window in place. Then

one is stuck! In a heartstopping move the Thief turns upside

down, torques on the recalcitrant bolt! Uhnnn! It comes free!

The Thief replaces the existing bolts with custom bolts

buffered with rollers, pries at the window corners and pops

the pane free. Then the Thief rolls the pane onto the

rollers, leaving just enough room to slip into...

INT. PETROTEX CORP - LATE NIGHT

The Board of Directors Suite of a large multinational

corporation, dominated by an obsidian table ringed with

leather chairs. An Alarm Box softly pulses.

The Thief points a Remote at the alarm. The Remote runs

possible codes at speed on display panel, until the right one

stops. The Thief clicks the Remote. Off.

The kind of art that gilds greed with taste lines the walls.

Ignoring it, the Thief picks up a VASE OF LILIES and carries

it across the room to a side table by the window. The Thief

carefully tilts the stems so that the lilies hang over the

lip of the vase, away from the window, then exits the Board

Room.

INT. RECEPTION AREA - LATE NIGHT

A Lichtenstein, some plants, a large map of the world with

tiny red lights indicating branch offices around the world. A

Christmas tree with some uniformly wrapped presents carefully

arranged beneath it. Keeping an eye on a set of double glass

entry doors, the Thief pauses behind a Henry Moore sculpture.

Through the doors we see a desk where sits a SECURITY GUARD,

his back to us.

INT. HALL/ INT. RECEPTION ROOM - INTERCUT

The Security Guard reads and half-watches the Monitors. On

one we see the Reception Area and the vaguest shadow of the

Thief. The Guard looks at his book, the Thief begins to move.

The Guard glances back at the Monitor, the Thief jumps back.

Then the Guard returns to the book. On the Monitor the Thief

darts across the room and into a door.

INT. BATHROOM - SAME

Which is a bathroom. Hmmm. But that is exactly where the

Thief wants to be. Out of the backpack the Thief takes a

small drill and begins to make a hole high on the wall.

INT. HALLWAY - SAME

Above the Security Guard, the drill pierces the wall, leaving

just a dusting of sheetrock on the floor.

INT. BATHROOM - SAME

The Thief feeds a tiny tube up to the edge of the just-

drilled hole. Turns a valve on a small canister.

INT. HALL - NIGHT

The Security guard yawns, tries to focus on his reading.

EXT. NEW YORK BUILDING - LATE NIGHT

From a distant perspective we see the shadowy Thief exit the

bathroom as the Security Guard puts his head down on the

desk. The Thief enters another room off the Reception area--

the Chairman's Office.

INT. CHAIRMAN'S OFFICE - NIGHT

Pictures of the Chairman with politicians and celebrities

line one wall. Across from the desk, a Jasper Johns map of

the United States. Above the desk, a SMALL PAINTING in an old

gilt frame. A REMBRANDT. The pride of the collection, a nude

woman reading a letter.

The Thief takes out a small periscope mirror and some right

angled cutters. Carefully slides the mirror behind the

painting, manipulates the mirror with one hand, the cutters

with another. Finds the alarm. Snips it.

Moving quickly now. The Thief rolls the canvas in acid-free

paper. Takes a cylindrical tube from the backpack, pulls out

another Canvas, fits it carefully into the stolen painting's

now-empty frame. The Thief stares at it through the opaque

helmet visor. Approves. Slips the rolled-up stolen canvas

into the empty tube. Leaves.

Before we follow the thief, we linger to see the replacement

canvas...ELVIS. On black velvet.

INT. HALLWAY - LATE NIGHT

With the Thief now, out the reception area and into the hall,

where the drugged guard sleeps, to a Mail Chute built into

the wall. As the Thief opens the chute we hold on the last

line of a mailing label: KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA.

The Thief pops the labeled tube down the chute.

EXT. BUILDING WINDOW - NIGHT

The Thief disappears out the open window. The window closes,

becoming...

EXT. BUILDING WINDOW - NIGHT

Another window, in which we see reflected the lens of a

telescope and, in that lens, the image of the office where

the thief has just been. A silhouetted FIGURE is looking

through the telescope.

Through the scope's lens. Close detail of the Office where

the thief had been. We see light fall into the room as the

Figure exits a door and softly closes it. The Image lightens

and DISSOLVES INTO:

INT. PETROTEX HEADQUARTERS - VIDEO - DAY

The Board Suite on VIDEO, daytime, with COPS and

INVESTIGATORS combing the crime scene. The Security Guard

being interviewed, lots of activity.

FIRST TECHNICIAN (O.S.)

Look at those a**holes.

INT. WEBBER INSURANCE - MAIN OFFICE - DAY

The video plays live on a large monitor in a big bullpen of a

room, all Herman Miller partitions and work stations butted

together, row upon row of them. This is where the world's

biggest insurance companies track down major theft losses.

FOUR TECHNICIANS work at computer monitors, calling up

security plans, art data, details on possible suspects.

HECTOR CRUZ enters, crisp, professional, an ex-FBI man who

thinks he's smarter than anybody else, and is almost right.

Cruz glances at the cops working in the Board Suite, knows

they'll never figure this out.

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