A Pure Double Cross (19 page)

My eyes climbed skyward despite themselves. The lobby of the Federal Reserve Bank made St. John's Cathedral look like Granny's parlor. I felt small. Tiny. Infinitesimal. I had obviously been insane to think this austere principality could be conquered by a ragtag army of five.

I queued up behind The Schooler and looked around, past all the gun barrels trained on my every move. Where the hell was the Commander? The entire loopy half-baked scheme depended on my getting hold of him.

“Do they have explosives?” said the deep angry voice from somewhere to my right. I turned to see. The Commander stepped out from behind a potted palm. Apparently the Federal Reserve Police didn't have a height requirement. Frederick Seifert was barely five foot two.

“No sir. They don't have any explosives, armored vehicles or battering rams. No need to push the panic button.”

Commander Seifert approached. No wonder he was grumpy. In addition to being short he was bald and wore thick glasses.

“Then explain yourself!”

I looked him over. Spit and polish top to toe. Wispy strands combed straight back and plastered to his skull, uniform blouse and pants steam pleated, brass buttons gleaming, a see-yourself shine on his oxfords and clear polish on his fingernails.

I skipped the details. How Mr. Big planned to use me as the Trojan Horse to breach the castle walls, how I got the drop on him and flipped the switch. Seifert would want to know what was in it for him.

“Can I check my watch?”

Seifert nodded.

“Okay, it's 7:27. The Fulton Road Mob plans to storm up the front steps in three minutes time. I know, I know. So what?” I spread my stance to lower my height and lowered my voice to draw him close. “Here's what. Why let the Cleveland PD grab all the glory when you, Commander, can round them all up in one fell swoop.”

The Commander did not reply.

“I don't have time to explain all the why's and wherefore's. But the mob thinks I'm on their team. They're expecting I've taken you hostage by now. They're expecting to see me standing behind you by an open front door.”

The Commander didn't say anything to this either. One crooked eyebrow sufficed.

“Ridiculous, I know, but here's the thing. We've got superior knowledge, why not use it? If you send your troops out the tunnels to those statues and you allow me to stand behind you at the open door, the mob lookout will give the others the go-ahead. They storm up the steps, you slam the door in their faces. Your men pile out of the statues and round them up from behind. Duck soup!”

Commander Seifert's eyelids narrowed to tiny slits but what was left of his eyeballs burned with a fine cold light. He was tempted but not convinced.

There was one more angle I could play. I had grown up with men like Seifert, hard working second generation Krauts, shamed by their ancestry, noses pressed to the glass, on the outside looking in.

“Sir, Chester Halladay and the rest of the country club brass screwed me six ways to Sunday on this operation. You know how they are. But if we can pull this off, well, they'd have to raise a glass in your honor next Friday at Rohr's. Wouldn't they?”

Seifert's eyelids raised up to half staff. I couldn't throw in the closer. This is your last best chance to win that promotion to New York or D.C. or wherever it was Federal Reserve
Police Commanders aspired to go. I wasn't supposed to know about that. And Commander Seifert could do the math.

He took his time toting it up, precious time we didn't have. Jimmy and the seven twerps would be rumbling our way in a hijacked hay truck.

Seifert spoke. “The tunnels haven't been used for years. The entry doors are padlocked, I don't have keys.”

Christ, one step forward and two steps back. I was about to give up the ghost and devote my life to serving the poor and destitute when Commander Seifert snapped to and started barking orders.

“Grab the bolt cutters from the maintenance room, machine guns from the weapon's locker! Deploy down the tunnels! Keep watch through the peepholes. When the front door swings shut, jump out and make arrests!”

The squadron of officers looked at their Commander as if he were speaking in tongues.

“Go!”

They went. I used the momentary chaos to return The Schooler's Beretta to his coat pocket. He kept his hands laced behind his head and his eyes downcast, a tiny shrug of his shoulder his only acknowledgment.

I slipped my hand in my pocket and slipped my fingers around the butt and trigger of Jimmy's .44, my pestering brain wondering whether Slopehead was already laying in wait outside the ribbed steel gate on Rockwell. I told my brain to shut its yap.

Timing was key now. I was tempted to stick the .44 in Seifert's belly this instant but that's not the way spies work.

West Point trains soldiers to press the attack when they've got the enemy in transition, scattered, on the run. They teach different in spy school. They teach you to wait for the enemy to take their positions, wait for the enemy to train their weapons on ghostly phantoms in the far distance. At which time you sneak up and shoot them in the back.

I watched Seifert rallying his troops, his skull bright with perspiration, his plastered strands unplastered, his longed-for chance to demonstrate his prowess to the stuffed shirts about to turn around and swallow him whole. I felt bad for him for a moment, maybe two.

Then I pointed at my watch and ticked my head toward the door.

Seifert nodded and strode across the speckled marble floor. He signaled to the keeper of the keys. The old man unlocked the door.

Seifert told him to keep The Schooler covered. The old man unholstered an ancient Colt and held it with both hands.

Commander Seifert stood in front of me and grabbed the door handle.

“My apologies Commander, but I need to ask for your sidearm.” Seifert looked up at me, I patted his shoulder reassuringly. “We need to make this look convincing.”

Seifert exhaled sharply through his nostrils. I didn't press. This was the make or break moment.

Then he grabbed up his .32 revolver and handed it over, just like that.

Taking a man hostage with his own weapon is pretty lowdown so I was about to pocket his gun and pull the .44 Special when I realized that I hadn't checked to make sure the .44 was loaded. Whoever said there was honor among thieves hadn't spent any time with the Fulton Road Mob.

Frederick Seifert wouldn't be packing an empty sidearm. I didn't intend to use it but you never know. I pressed the barrel of the .32 to the base of Seifert's spine.

“Is that really necessary?” he grumbled.

I placed a restraining hand on the iron door and felt bad for him a third time. “I'm afraid so,” I said. “This is a bank robbery.”

The man didn't flinch, sigh, curse or fall to his knees and weep. He became, simply, very very still.

I said what I had to say. “I've come a long way to get here Commander, killed a lot of people I didn't particularly want to kill.” I jammed the heater hard against his back. “One more corpse won't make a difference.”

I couldn't see the keeper of the keys behind me but the back of my neck told me his Colt had strayed from The Schooler to myself. If he was a trained commando like his colleagues I would've been dead by now. But he was just an old man up past his bedtime.

I heard a gun clatter to the marble floor. Henry had disarmed him.

“We're going downstairs and collect the shipment. You can press the panic button the second we leave, there's no need for any heroics. Understood?”

Seifert nodded.

Henry and I marched our prisoners across the lobby, under the steepled ceiling, toward the stairs. We were down one flight and about to turn the corner when we heard slapping shoe leather on stone steps. More than one, coming hard.

I jabbed Seifert with his own gun barrel. “Send ‘em back down.”

“Return to your posts!” called Seifert to the unseen stair climbers.

Their steps slowed. I prodded Seifert again. “This minute!”

The steps went the other way. We paused a beat, turned the corner and descended another flight. The Schooler led the way.

We turned left into a brightly lit corridor, squinty bright, hospital bright. We approached a room with a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. The currency counting room of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

There were two Gorgons at the door. One a dark-haired Latin, the other a strapping Swede with vented short sleeves to accommodate his biceps. Their .45 semi-automatics looked like toy guns in their mitts. These were the stair-climbers, their chests still heaving.

“Weapons on the floor gentlemen,” said a calm authoritative voice. The Schooler.

The guards looked to Seifert. He nodded. They very slowly placed their weapons on the floor. “Kick them away.” They kicked them away. “Now prone yourselves out.”

They remained standing. The Schooler repeated his command. They remained standing.

Henry was a good shot with his elegant little Beretta. He drilled the toe of the big Swede's boot with one shot. The Swede pitched over, howling in pain.

The other guard dropped to one knee. The Schooler put the keeper of the keys on the floor with a nifty leg sweep, stepped forward and stopped five feet away as the burly Latin reached for his ankle gun. “Don't make me kill you son.”

The guard froze.

“That's it, that's the way. Now lie down and put your arms behind you.”

Henry snatched the ankle gun once the guard was down. He moved over to the wounded guard, talking to him in a soothing voice as he did a quick pat down. The Swede was clean.

I was standing there like a stooge, holding Seifert hostage, watching the Schooler's sure-handed work when I realized we had a fatal flaw in our plan. We had no way to hogtie the guards.

Henry yanked off his belt, a fancy piece of braided leather strips. The buckle hung by a thread. When he bit through it the leather strips shook free.

Problem solved.

I cinched up Seifert in a left-armed chokehold so I could cover Henry Voss as he quickly bound the guards' wrists and ankles. He did the same to the keeper of the keys.

We inched past them and entered the currency counting room. The three clerks wore green eyeshades and gray smocks with no pockets. They huddled against the far wall, terrified. This wasn't supposed to happen. Ever.

The Schooler instructed them to raise their hands. They did. They had little rubber caps on the tips of their fingers.

I surveyed the counting room, hoping to see stacks of spendable bills that smelled of cigarettes and dried sweat. But The Schooler had been right about what we'd find. The big stainless steel tables were piled high with newly-minted currency, stacks of one hundred bills sealed with bank bands, then bound with tape into blocks containing a thousand bills apiece.

Our timing was good. Only one of the thirty or so blocks had been unbound for counting. Twenties. One thousand crisp new twenty dollar bills.

The air in the room crackled with static electricity. The Schooler's eyebrows stood at attention. I kept the gun to Seifert's back as The Schooler issued instructions to the counting clerks in a softly malevolent voice.

“No small denominations. Blocks of fifties and hundreds only. You should have five hundreds and eight fifties.”

The counting clerks stood stock still.

“Load the blocks onto the hand truck,” said The Schooler patiently, indicating the long flat steel cart against the glass wall.

The counting clerks didn't budge. Henry addressed himself to the youngest clerk.

“What's your name young man?”

“Fran-cis,” said the young man as if he wasn't quite sure.

“They call you Frank?”

Frank nodded, looked away.

“Well Frank, here's what I'd like you to do.”

The Schooler paused until Frank met his gaze.

“I'd like you to load the eight blocks of fifties and the five blocks of hundreds onto the hand truck and lead us down the hall to the loading dock. Can you do that for me?”

Frank chewed his lip and shuffled his feet.

“I understand your pride in what you do,” said The Schooler, gesturing with his free hand, his gun hand steady. “The Bureau of Engraving turns old undershirts and overalls into the world's most valuable commodity, they spin straw into gold. And they trust you to safeguard it,” said Henry Voss with fatherly regard. Then his voice hardened ever so slightly. “But it's not worth the life of anyone in this room Frank. Can we agree on that?”

“I...I guess.”

“Excellent, now let's get underway.”

Frank loaded the blocks of currency onto the hand truck. His fellow counting clerks squinched their mugs at The Schooler with an intense something in their eyes. Defiance, I supposed. But I was wrong.

“Assist him if you like,” said Henry.

The other two clerks put their hands down and pitched in, sorting through the thousand- bill blocks on the steel table and heaving them to Frank at the hand truck like gunnery mates pitching shells on the deck of a battleship. They weren't happy about it, but they were a team. They weren't about to let their youngest member take the fall.

Frank wheeled the loaded hand truck to the door. He could have stacked the blocks on top of one another so that we would have had a moment's distraction as we inspected the blocks to make sure they were fifties and hundreds only. But the blocks were laid end to end for easy scrutiny. Fifties and hundreds only.

You had to hand it to The Schooler. The guy knew how to work a room.

We formed a procession for the solemn walk down the aisle. Frank and the hand truck in front, The Schooler behind, me and Commander Seifert bringing up the rear. We squeezed past the proned out Gorgons at the door.

“See you soon asshole,” said the Latin one to my right.

“Real soon,” said the Swede.