Takeover

by Lisa Black

  This disturbed her even more. What happened to home in time for dinner?

  “Sit down,” Frank told her, collecting a straight-backed chair for her. “You look hot.”

  She tried, unsuccessfully, not to glare at him and sat. So did Frank, Jason, and, after a brief hesitation, Ms. Elliott.

  Cavanaugh, of course, sat at the head. “How’s the perimeter?”

  Jason answered him. “SRT has traffic diverted. It doesn’t help that Superior is about the busiest street in Cleveland these days, since so many stores closed on Euclid. We’ve got a lot of whining middle-management types at each roadblock. We’ve corralled the press in front of the library, where the heat might convince most of them to leave. Phone service going into the Fed lobby has been shut off, except for the reception desk, because we’ll use that.”

  They sounded so matter-of-fact. As difficult as it was for Theresa to believe, this was a rather routine event for everyone except her. They knew what to do, because they followed the same process for each event.

  That should have comforted her, but it didn’t. This wasn’t the same as every other hostage incident. This was Paul.

  “Patrick,” Cavanaugh said to the detective. “You worked that domestic at Riverview last month, right? Your partner’s in there?”

  Frank nodded and summarized the early-morning murder of Mark Ludlow, adding that Paul had been present to interview the man’s coworkers when the hostage situation developed.

  Cavanaugh said nothing to that, offered no consolation or words of encouragement, but Theresa did not expect him to. Cop machismo would not allow it. When you work with sharks, you don’t bleed in the water.

  “Snipers are in place?”

  Jason said, “We’ve got five, one on the street and four on different floors here. But there’s a problem.”

  Cavanaugh took in the room once more, the outside light bouncing weirdly off his brown eyes. “The windows don’t open.”

  “Nope.”

  “Ms. Elliott?”

  Theresa had almost forgotten that the woman was there. But then librarians were good at walking softly, and Ms. Elliott seemed versed in camouflage; her tailored suit gave only the slightest hint of what was, to judge from her shapely calves, an outstanding figure. No sense distracting male readers from their tomes. But even the resourceful librarian seemed perplexed. “I’m sorry?”

  “Are there any windows in this building that open?”

  “No. None.”

  Theresa hated buildings like that—something to do with mild claustrophobia—but wondered why SRT snipers would show such concern for damaging library windows.

  “The books need to be kept at a constant humidity,” the librarian explained. “Some are quite old. In our Rare and Antique Books section, we have some manuscripts that are two hundred and fifty years old and even in sealed display cases—I’m sorry, I’m digressing.”

  “That’s all right.” Cavanaugh spoke warmly, but Theresa could see that Ms. Elliott was made of stern stuff and rather immune to dimples.

  “It’s also a safety issue, since we’re open to the public every day but Sunday and holidays. But—”

  Theresa broke in. “What about it? Don’t snipers go on the roof, anyway?”

  “They’re too visible on a roof, silhouetted against the sky. They prefer windows, but then we have to open up every window in the building so that their positions are not obvious. They’ll just have to figure something out.”

  “There are cutouts on the roof,” Peggy Elliott said. She spoke reluctantly, with a trace of guilt for suggesting a way to use her building of knowledge for violent purposes. “The roof is ringed with a short wall. It has slots at intervals, for rain and snow drainage.”

  “Thank you. Jason, SRT has probably already found those, but make sure they know about them anyway.” Cavanaugh shook his head. “I don’t envy them having to be on a roof in this heat. What’s going on over at the Fed?”

  “They’ve shut off the elevators and cleared the employee lobby. They have a team at the other end of the hallway, tucked around the corner.” Jason touched the screen, pointing out the area behind the hostages. “They’ll keep the two guys from getting into the elevators or reaching the employee lobby, which has entrances to the parking garage and Superior Avenue.”

  “But they can’t approach that way,” Cavanaugh mused. “No cover. Any stairwells or elevators in the public lobby?”

  “No.”

  “So the only thing those two men can do is to go out the same way they came in. Except they’ve got no getaway car to step outside for, because we took it. Did we find anything significant in the car?”

  “Registered to a Robert Moyers in Brookpark,” Frank told him. “No one answers the phone or the door; the house is locked up tight, with no signs of violence. We’ve got a guy sitting on it in case he comes home. The car has not been reported stolen. Theresa? You find anything?”

  She swallowed. “Not really. Prints are going into AFIS right now. A cash receipt from Lakewood, dated yesterday. An empty Advil bottle. A smudge of blood in the trunk, but we won’t have DNA results until, I hope, this is over.”

  “You’re Theresa,” Cavanaugh said to her, looking her up and down with such care that she wanted to squirm. “I was just hearing about you the other day.”

  And he still had that trace of a grin, damn him. “Yeah?”

  “I had lunch with Jack. Prosecutor Sabian, I mean. Don’t frown like that—he thinks very highly of you. Something about a murderous pediatric nurse and saving his baby’s life. Really, stop scowling at me.”

  “I don’t care for being discussed behind my back.” Stop it, she told herself. Be smart. He’s going to want you to leave; he’d be an idiot if he didn’t. Let him think one phone call to the county prosecutor could open any door in the city. “But yes, Jack and I are…old friends.”

  His gaze grew even more appraising. “Well, I’m enchanted to make your acquaintance. Why, exactly, are you…?”

  Time to wipe the smile off his face, and besides, better he hear it from her than someone else. Men never forgave the withholding of information. “My fiancé’s in that lobby, Mr. Cavanaugh.”

  The grin did indeed disappear, if only for a moment. “I see. Patrick’s partner?”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She stared at her hands, refusing to meet his eyes, though she could feel his gaze burning into her temple. Finally he said only, “We’ll get him out.”

  She let a sigh of relief escape between her teeth. He hadn’t asked her to leave—yet.

  A uniformed cop appeared. “I got someone you’re going to want to talk to.”

  CHAPTER 5

  9:25 A.M.

  “My name is William Kessler.” The man clutched at his tie as he spoke and nearly collapsed into the chair Frank brought for him. Finally, Theresa thought, someone who’s as nervous as I am. “I’m vice president of Supervision and Regulation. The president is in D.C. right now. I had to shuffle cars around in my driveway this morning because my daughter had a late night—anyhow, I got caught in traffic, and that’s why I was late to work, and you’d already barricaded the building. Who’s in there? Is anyone hurt? No? Thank God. I tried to call the president, but the open-market meeting had already convened.” He began to wind down. “I really didn’t want to be late today.”

  “Mr. Kessler—” Cavanaugh began.

  “Are they terrorists? Do they have a bomb? What on earth do these men want? Can’t you get them out of there? There hasn’t been blood spilled inside a Federal Reserve bank since…well, ever, so far as I know.”

  “Has one ever been robbed?”

  “Robbed?” Kessler stared at Cavanaugh, then the rest of them, in dismay, either over their collective ignorance of the Federal Reserve Banking system of America or over his task of summarizing it for them. “You don’t rob a Federal Reserve bank. The Fed supervises and regulates banks, sets the discount rate—the rate at which we loan money to banks and
other financial institutions—and controls the amount of currency in circulation, working with the Mint. We also process all cashed checks for our district, though that’s all going electronic now—”

  Frank interrupted. “But you’re still a bank, right? You have cash in the drawers of those teller windows?”

  “Some, yes. Savings-bond transactions are still conducted on the west side of the public lobby. The cages on the east side were left there for show.”

  “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 afternoon—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 tel
evision 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.

  Maybe not. “How are you picking up this video?”

  “Streaming Internet link,” Jason said.

  “This is being broadcast over the Internet?” The Fed VP was clearly horrified.

  “It’s triple-password-protected, and all three will be changed as soon as this is over. Don’t worry.”

  The librarian spoke up again. “We have wireless Internet connections all over this building. Will that interfere?”

  “No. It’s on the same server, but it’s a secure link.”

  Theresa’s head swam. We have bad guys with guns, and they’re discussing the intricacies of modern communication.

  “Don’t be afraid, Theresa.”

  It took her brain a moment to realize that Cavanaugh had spoken to her, and it shocked her gaze away from the TV monitor. “What?”

  “I said, don’t be afraid.” The smirk had left. His dark eyes appeared somber, and for a moment her soul felt the fleeting touch of comfort. Maybe he really was all that they said he was. Maybe Paul would be fine. “We’ll get him out of there. I’m guessing these guys have figured out that they’ve shut themselves in a box and are already praying for a way to open it. With luck we’ll be out of here by lunchtime. There’s just one thing, though. I need you to leave.”

  This must be what it felt like to be sucker-punched. “What?”

  “I can’t have emotional people in here. I need to concentrate on the hostage takers and on them alone, if I’m going to get Paul out of there.” His voice remained calm, hypnotic, and if she didn’t take care, she’d find herself agreeing. “I can’t have your reactions distracting me.”

  “I won’t react.”

  “Theresa—”

  “No, I mean it,” she insisted, unable to stop the babbling undercurrent from her words. “I was married for fifteen years. I learned how not to react, believe me.”