Read Chapter 14: The Plan Solidifies

The farmhouse kitchen smelled of coffee gone bitter and the wood smoke that had begun to creep in through the cracks in the window frames. Walter had spread his papers across the table—blueprints of the Federal Trust Building, a schematic of the second floor, and his own cramped notes on the audit schedule—and the others had gathered around him like students at a lecture they didn't want to attend.

Roy leaned against the counter, arms crossed. Doc sat at the far end, cleaning his glasses with a rag that was dirtier than the lenses. Sal perched on the windowsill, bouncing one heel against the frame. Jack stood behind Walter, too close, his shadow falling across the papers.

"This is the whole game," Walter said, tapping the floor plan. "Federal Trust hosts an annual audit celebration the third week of October. Every ledger, every record, every internal memorandum has to be accounted for by the external auditors from Peat Marwick. That means Julian DeVries will have his master ledger out of the safe and on his desk for review."

Roy's eyes narrowed. "You're sure?"

"I did this dance for twelve years. The comptroller's office sends out the notice ninety days ahead. The bank has to open its books to the audit team, and the senior officers are required to be present for the opening inventory. DeVries will not leave the building that day with his personal records tucked in his breast pocket. He'll have them locked in his office safe, but the safe will be opened and closed at least half a dozen times during the audit."

"So we walk in during the celebration." Roy nodded slowly. "Bold. Stupid. But bold."

Walter shook his head. "We don't walk in. I walk in. The rest of you come through the service entrance."

He slid a second sheet forward, a floor plan of the lower level. "Audit celebrations have a catered lunch served in the employee dining hall on the ground floor. The kitchen staff is contracted from an outside vendor—Bridgeton Foods out of Gary, Indiana. They hire extra help for the week. No background checks beyond a name and a handshake."

Sal stopped bouncing his heel. "We're catering?"

"You're maintenance, same as me." Walter pulled the third sheet. "The building engineer schedules a boiler inspection the second Tuesday of October. It's routine. The city requires it. Three men come in before dawn, work through the morning, and leave by three. The service log will show they checked the steam lines, the water pressure, the emergency generators."

Jack circled around to Walter's other side. His jaw worked slowly, grinding something that wasn't there. "And what are we supposed to do? Kiss DeVries's ring?"

"You keep your head down," Roy said, his voice flat as a blade. "That's what you're supposed to do."

Jack's lips peeled back. "I didn't sign on to be nobody's damned —"

"You signed on to do what I tell you." Roy stepped forward, and the kitchen seemed to shrink around them. "That was the arrangement. Or have you forgotten?"

The moment stretched. Walter watched Jack's hands—the way they flexed, knuckles whitening, the tremor that had been growing worse over the past weeks. Jack's eyes were bloodshot and wild, and Walter caught himself thinking of a spark plug wire pulled loose, firing at random.

Doc cleared his throat. "He's not going to forget anything. We're all on edge. It's the waiting."

Roy held Jack's stare another beat, then stepped back. "Fine. We'll be in the City a week ahead of time. We'll case the building, learn the routes, know exactly how long it takes to walk from the service entrance to the executive suite."

"That's two floors up," Sal said. "The schematics show a freight elevator that stops at the mezzanine. From there it's a stairwell, but there's a security gate at the landing."

Walter nodded. "I know. I'll unlock it from the inside."

Roy turned to him. "How? You're supposed to be auditing."

"I'll be auditing." Walter smiled, and it felt strange on his face—a cold, precise thing. "The audit celebration includes a reception in the executive conference room at four o'clock. Senior officers host the auditors for drinks and handshakes. DeVries will be there. His office will be empty. And I'll excuse myself from the reception for a moment because the accountant in charge of the Halcyon Mills file has a question that needs answering."

"No." Doc set down his glasses, the lenses catching the light. "Too many points of failure. If anyone remembers you leaving, if DeVries gets skittish and checks his office, if the auditors get chatty about you—"

"The auditors will be drunk on shared confidence." Walter flipped to a small notebook, opening it to a page of names. "I've already written out the file references. I know the language. I've done this dance. When I say I need to clarify a ledger entry, no one questions it. It is the most boring thing a man can say in a bank."

Doc stared at him for a long moment. Then he picked up his glasses and slid them back on. "It could work. It could. But the strongbox is in DeVries's office safe, which is a Mosler A-2. That's a four-wheel combination lock, torque-resistant, and if you dial it wrong three times, it goes into a deadlock that requires a technician from the Mosler office in Cleveland to open."

"I know the model."

"Then you know the safe has a backup key mechanism that the bank president keeps in a separate envelope in the vault downstairs. That envelope is signed and dated by DeVries himself. He'd notice if it were missing."

Walter's heart beat faster, but he kept his voice calm. "He'd notice if it were missing the day after. But the audit requires that single-use seals be placed on all access points at the end of each day. The seal numbers are recorded in the audit log. If the envelope is opened and resealed with a new—"

"That's a forged seal." Doc leaned forward. "That's not an accountant's trick. That's a forger's trade, and I don't see a forger sitting at this table."

Nobody spoke.

Jack laughed—a short, bitter sound. "Hell, Doc. You've been holding out on us."

Doc's jaw tightened. He looked down at his hands, and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter. "My name isn't Doc. It's Vincent. Vincent O'Mara."

Sal's heel went still. Roy straightened off the counter.

Doc held up a hand before anyone could speak. "I was a fighter. Twenty-two fights, 1930 to 1932. Midweight. I took a beating on the south side of Chicago that scrambled my thinking and a doctor's license that wasn't mine to hold." He took a breath. "I've never told anyone in this crew because I didn't want to be looked at differently. But I know seals. I know forging papers. I forged my own damned diploma."

Roy crossed the kitchen in three strides and stood over Doc—over Vincent. "And you decided to share this when?"

"When it mattered. It matters now." Vincent met Roy's eyes without flinching. "I can make you a seal that will satisfy an audit clerk. I can counterfeit DeVries's signature well enough to fool a teller. But I need samples. Ink samples, paper samples, a week in a room alone with good light and steady hands."

The kitchen went quiet. Walter could hear the wind stripping leaves from the trees outside.

Jack broke the silence. "Well, well. The sawbones is a crook after all." His grin was wolfish. "Guess that makes us all something we ain't."

Roy turned back to Walter, and there was something new in his face—something that might have been grudging respect. "You got a plan that needs a forger. He's got a trade he's kept hidden for a year. What else you got up your sleeve, Crane?"

Walter thought about the routing order in his pocket, the one that linked Halcyon Mills to DeVries's Federal Trust. He thought about Ruth Ellison's words—the pattern of smaller banks bleeding out across three states. He thought about Arthur Phelps, missing and presumed dead, and the notebook he'd left behind.

"I have the audit schedule, the floor plans, and the combination to the Mosler safe."

Sal's head snapped up. "You have the combination?"

Walter felt the weight of the room turn toward him. He hadn't told them before. He hadn't been sure he could trust them with it. But the plan demanded something more than hope.

"DeVries used the same combination for every safe in his career. It's his daughter's birthday. February 12, 1918. But the safe has a secondary code that resets the deadlock mechanism from the inside. I don't have that. So we have one window: the celebration, the reception, the moment he's distracted by the auditors."

Roy smiled, slow and dangerous. "You've been holding out on us too."

Walter met his gaze. "So have you."

The words hung in the air, and Walter saw Roy's smile falter for just a fraction of a second before he rebuilt it.

"Then we're even," Roy said. "Let's get to work."