Lisa Black: Takeover

“Is the vault in the lobby?” Theresa asked.

The Fed’s vice president yanked at his tie once more, distorting the cords in his wrinkled neck. “The money vault is underground. It’s also three stories high, and they’d never be able to get into it anyway… This isn’t the neighborhood savings and loan-that’s what I’m trying to explain.”

“You asked about terrorists,” Cavanaugh reminded him. “So before I talk to them, has the Fed received any threats lately?”

“Every day. From the people who simply aren’t happy with the interest rate to the ones who think the Federal Reserve is a privately owned bank and/or a method for oppressing the American people and/or responsible for JFK’s assassination. I’m not kidding. Supposedly we murdered him over Executive Order 11110-”

“Recently,” Cavanaugh said. “Have there been any recent, specific threats? Any that mentioned today’s date or referenced the secretary of state’s visit?”

Kessler quieted a moment to think. “No. And I insist that PR make me aware of each and every one.”

“Okay. If there’s a political agenda, they’ll mention it as soon as they pick up the phone. Those types are never shy. In the meantime we’ll assume they came to rob the place.”

“But that’s ridiculous ! We have tighter security than the White House. We have metal detectors, armed guards, and dogs protecting that lobby.” The level of Kessler’s voice rose with each word. “How could this happen ?”

“They ran in and put a gun to someone’s head,” Frank told him. “All the security in the world can’t fix that.”

“But why?” the man wailed. “Why us ?”

“Because these guys figured a bank was a bank. And your lobby opens earlier than the other downtown banks’.”

Kessler rubbed his eyes with one palm and admitted, as if it pained him to do so, that they opened at eight for savings-bond transactions and school groups.

Frank continued, “Maybe they thought rush hour would slow up our response. They could come in, have the tellers empty their drawers into their bag, and leave. That’s how most bank robberies go. That’s what would have happened, too, if that security guard hadn’t grabbed their car.”

Jason cleared his throat. “He acted according to protocol. Containment is the number-one priority with armed attackers.”

“Except that if he hadn’t contained them, they might have just taken the money and left. Instead we have a hostage situation,” Frank said. Just as Theresa began to tremble with rage at this error, he added, “But then they might have taken a few people with them, too. You never know.”

Cavanaugh theorized, “They go in thinking it’s the neighborhood First National, get surprised by the level of security present, and on top of that they lose their wheels. They take hostages until they can figure out what to do next.”

“Unless they did kill Ludlow,” Theresa pointed out. “Then they should know exactly what kind of bank it is.”

Kessler started, his lanky body twitching as if she’d applied a shock. “Mark Ludlow? Is he dead? I thought you said no one’s been hurt.”

Frank outlined the morning’s murder investigation for Kessler and Cavanaugh. The vice president had only met the man twice, so he could not positively identify the Polaroid photo of the victim. Frank put in a call to Ludlow’s fifth-floor office, where a secretary, waiting to be evacuated by the Fed security force, told him that Mr. Ludlow had not arrived for work. “Unless you’ve got two Mark Ludlows,” he said to Kessler and the rest of the group huddled around the reading table, “I’m guessing he’s dead, and I’m guessing he got that way because of something to do with those two guys in the lobby across the street. What did Ludlow do for you? Why would they target him?”

“He’s a bank examiner, division of consumer affairs. He monitors banks’ operations regarding credit, truth-in-lending laws, interest rates.”

“So maybe he found out something about a bank that they wanted to hide,” Cavanaugh suggested.

“No,” Kessler said immediately. “Ludlow would have shared any information with the division head. He just got here-Ludlow, I mean. He transferred from the Atlanta bank, not a month ago, so he’s still learning our idiosyncratic little ways of doing things. Any officer at the banks we govern would know that killing Ludlow wouldn’t hide damaging information, and besides, banks don’t do things like that.”

Theresa caught a grin before it made it to her lips. She couldn’t smile. Paul might end up dead.

Jason worked on a different theory. “They must have tried to make Ludlow tell them how to break into the bank.”

Cavanaugh drummed his fingers along the phone receiver, frowning in thought. “But why pick a guy who’s only been there a month?”

“There weren’t any signs of torture on the body,” Theresa said. “The killer hit Ludlow in the head a few times, and that was that.”

Frank took out a cigarette but refrained, under Ms. Elliott’s wary eye, from lighting up. “Maybe he had enemies in Atlanta and they followed him here. But then why rob the bank? Some sort of afterthought?”

“He told them something before he died,” Jason said. “Something worth breaking into a Federal Reserve for.”

“What’s happening over there today?” Cavanaugh asked Kessler. “What’s special?”

The man shrugged. “Nothing. The daily routine: financial analyses, a meeting or two. Banks might come in for some cash transactions, but nothing all that big, except-” He stared at the portrait of Clio, but the muse seemed to make him uneasy and he turned to Apollo and Hyacinthus instead.

“Except?”

“The money shred.”

The room’s occupants waited for the man to explain about destroying what they all worked so hard to accumulate.

“We handle sending out new currency from the Bureau of Engraving in D.C., and the worn-out bills come to us to be destroyed, shredded. We exchanged old notes for new for the Bank One system yesterday. The old money will be shredded this after-noon-or would have been.”

“How much money are we talking?”

“In addition to what we usually have sitting around, probably about seven or eight million dollars.”

The room grew even more hushed, no doubt as people tried to picture $ 8 million. Just sitting around.

“Would Ludlow have overseen this?” Frank asked.

“No. It’s got nothing to do with him. He probably couldn’t even find that area of the tunnels if he went looking for it. Besides, most of the process is done by robots.”

“Robots?” Frank tapped his unlit cigarette on the table. “Like R2-D2?”

“More like forklifts without drivers.”

Cavanaugh leaned forward. “And old money wouldn’t have sequential numbers, would be nice and innocuous-looking to use. Let’s assume that’s what these guys are after. What route would they need to take to get to the money?”

“From the lobby? There isn’t one. They’d have to take an elevator from the employee lobby, and I thought you said security had that blocked off.”

“They have it covered,” the negotiator clarified. That, Theresa thought, must be the hallway and elevator bank behind the hostages, past the information desk.

“Then, from the elevator, they’d need a key card to get past the double doors on Sublevel One, and then another to get into the shredding room without setting off the alarm. Not to mention the fact that all these areas have cameras.”

“They can’t be too concerned about that.” Cavanaugh gestured toward the television monitor. “We already have them on camera.”

The vice president turned to stare at the sight of his employees crouched on the floor, hands behind their heads. He half stood, then sank back into the hard wooden chair like a deflating balloon. He’s getting it now, Theresa thought. The futility. The helplessness.