“One way in. And it’s from inside the building. Look here.” Ross took his turn pointing out the differences between the drawings. “Here’s your drawing, given to you by your boss? And these drawings are the original engineering drawings we got from his condo today. Yours were modified to show the hatch you thought you were digging to. And when you got close, he tried to kill you. All the Federal Reserve guards would have found were the dead bodies of some idiots trying to dig their way into the vault.”
The man stared at the drawings and shook his head. “Am I the only one that survived?”
“How many were down there? The team found you and two bodies.”
The man closed his eyes. Tears slowly formed at the edges and dribbled down his cheeks. He was trembling. Ross started to reach out for the man. Jack grabbed his arm and shook his head. “Wait,” he mouthed.
The man inhaled deeply and blew out a long breath through pursed lips. Then he opened his eyes. He looked at Ross. “They’re both dead?”
Ross nodded.
“Shit. One was my brother.” The man leaned forward and looked down at the table, his shoulders slumped. “What do you want to know?”
Twenty minutes later, they knew his name, the names of the deceased, and most of the plan as far as he was aware. It had been an elaborate scheme that was surprisingly successful at penetrating the ground beneath the city, working its way towards the Federal Reserve vault. Up until the explosion.
“Your boss was down there shortly before the explosion?” Ross asked. Jack and Granowski leaned forward to listen.
“He came down to check our progress. Congratulated us and said we had until one o’clock to make it to the vault. Then he left.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He left.”
“How did you get in and out of the tunnels?”
“We had three different routes. Each was a hike. An hour or so.”
Jack stood up. “He might still be down there.” He ripped a page out of the set of drawings, flipped it over, and sketched a crude overhead view of the area showing the Mississippi River, the bridge, and the Federal Reserve building. He held out his pen. “Show us where the entrances are that you used.”
The man sketched them in outside of the boundaries Jack had drawn and described where each one was.
“Can you get some of your team to check these out?” Jack asked Granowski.
“We’ll get them covered, plus some of the others we know about.”
“What others?”
“These are more out of the way, but there are lots of ways down into the sewers. Some that are farther away. There are some that are closer. Especially the sewer manholes in the streets.”
“Junior, get somebody from the Minneapolis sewer department that knows what’s down here and tell them we might need some equipment for going down there.”
Ross started dialing the phone. “How about some maps?”
“Good thinking, Junior. I knew I brought you along for something.” Jack flashed Ross a quick smile and then returned to his conversation with Granowski.
Jack tried to focus the group while they waited for the sewer crew and tried to decide what to do next. “Come on, guys.” He looked at Granowski. “The Governor created this whole thing to distract you from something else. The Fed is still the target. He staged the attempt on the vault, created an explosion, expected everyone to be killed.” Jack looked over the drawings on the table. “If it’s not the vault, what is it?”
Granowski had a worried look on his face. “Could he be hitting something somewhere else after bringing the focus here?
“Good question, but I doubt it. We can work that angle while we continue looking here.” Jack looked at Ross. “Why don’t you have a couple of guys in the office work that one?” Ross started to leave. “Wait a second, Junior.”
Jack looked back at Granowski. “If it’s not the vault, any plans to move money?”
“No trucks are scheduled for another day.”
“Anything other than money?”
“Check clearing, funds transfer, it’s all money,” Granowski said. “It’s what we do.”
“And you’ve never been robbed?”
“Never.”
“What happens if you are?”
“The shit hits the fan.” Granowski looked worried. “It would have a world-wide impact. Confidence in our money system could plummet. Banks wouldn’t know what to do. We’d stop moving money for a while until things got sorted out. That would cause a shortage in areas.”
“No trucks scheduled to move anything, but you’ll wire transfer?” Jack asked.
“That’s how most of the money is moved today. Lots of security, passwords, tokens, special secured computer network.”
“Is the network up now?”
“It was down for the holiday.” Granowski looked at the clock on the wall. “Like I said, it will be back up and running at one o’clock.”
“That’s what he’s after,” Jack said.
“Impossible. I told you about all of the security. It’s the safest, most monitored network in the world.”
“Can you delay restarting it?”
“Yes, if we really need to, but they aren’t breaking in there.”
“Maybe they don’t need to.” Jack stood up. “Junior, now go make the call. Have a couple of people at the office work the angle that something away from here is the target. Get Sure Thing, Squeaky, and anybody else he needs down here to help with the computer network stuff.”
Chapter 51
The round circle of light from the headlamp cut through the darkness and lit up the black plastic bag that was hanging from the large conduit that ran through the tunnel. The Governor removed the leather gloves and tucked them in his pocket before grabbing the dust-covered bag.
They had been planning this for over a year and placed the controller here almost six months ago in preparation for this moment. The Governor wasn’t even sure that the equipment was still in place. He had kept himself from checking on it until a month ago. He couldn’t believe he was standing in front of it now ready to end the wait. He tore open the bag and carefully removed the controller. Made up of a small computer screen with a thicker, plastic shell behind it, everything appeared intact. He pulled a small, flexible computer keyboard from his pocket, unrolled it, plugged it into the port on the side, and said a small prayer. Then he flipped a switch and watched the screen come to life. He was ready to make himself rich.
They pulled another table over next to the one that had the Federal Reserve blue prints laid out on it. Two men wearing stained overalls and worn leather work boots stood among the group, looking out of place among the clean tile floors and cafeteria tables and chairs.
“I’m Jack, Special Agent Miller.” Jack stuck out his hand and looked into the eyes of the man closer to him, the man with his hands in his pockets. “With the FBI,” he finished, grabbing the wide, strong hand of the man and shaking it. The hand felt rough and calloused. Jack glanced down and saw that splotches of dirt and rust colored the skin on the knuckles. The fingernails were uneven and dirty underneath and around the cuticles. The first two fingers had tobacco stains mixed in among the dirt and rust. “The other two here are Special Agent Fruen and Officer Granowski with the Federal Reserve.”
The man finished the handshake and put his hand back in his pocket. He was in his fifties, with a shaved head and a short, grey goatee. He had a cigarette tucked behind his right ear. “I’m Mike. This here’s Jimmy.” He tipped
