Read Chapter 19: The Heist of Federal Trust

The air in the Federal Trust lobby tasted of brass polish and champagne. Walter adjusted his borrowed spectacles—glass, no prescription—and let the crowd of bankers and their wives wash around him. Somewhere beyond the marble columns, a string quartet attempted Vivaldi over the murmur of a hundred conversations about interest rates and crop failures.

He allowed himself one glance toward the service corridor where Roy and Sal had slipped five minutes ago. The clock above the teller cages read 8:47. Thirteen minutes until the security rotation changed.

"Mr. Westlake."

Walter turned, heart seizing, to find a young clerk holding a silver tray of fluted glasses. The name on Walter's forged invitation had bought him entry, but it also made him a ghost haunting his own past. Edward Westlake, the man whose identity Walter wore like borrowed skin, was somewhere in this room. Walter had seen his silhouette near the punch bowl—older now, grayer at the temples, wearing the weary prosperity Walter himself had once expected to age into.

"I'm sorry," Walter said, forcing a smile that felt like a grimace. "I don't drink on audit nights. Bad habit from the old firm."

The clerk nodded and moved on, uninterested. Walter exhaled. His hands were shaking. He gripped the edge of a display table displaying the bank's new safety deposit systems—an irony not lost on him.

At 8:55, Walter excused himself from a conversation about wheat futures and made his way toward the executive washroom. Inside, he counted to sixty before removing his jacket, loosening his tie, and retrieving the folded length of black canvas Doc had sewn into the lining. He slipped it over his head, adjusting the eyeholes.

When he stepped out, he was just another shadow in a building full of shadows.

The vault corridor lay beyond the executive offices, locked by a door that required a badge Walter would never have. But Roy had found another way—the old maintenance tunnels, built when the bank had been a different institution with a different name. Walter passed through the small iron door Sal had wedged open and moved in darkness toward the dim glow of Roy's flashlight.

"Company," Roy whispered.

"Clock's running," Walter replied.

Roy nodded. The private strongroom of Cornelius DeVries, bank president, sat at the end of the tunnel, a vault within a vault. Walter touched the combination dial, his fingers remembering numbers he'd seen in ledgers years ago—DeVries had used the same code for every safe he'd ever controlled. A man of habits. A man who trusted the routine.

The dial turned. The door opened.

But as Walter reached for the steel cabinet inside, a thin shriek split the air—a secondary alarm, wired directly into the room's foundations.

"Christ," Roy hissed. "They added a trip."

"Jack." Walter turned. The crew's demolitions man stood at the tunnel mouth, face tight. "The alarm box. It's in the utility closet at the end of the corridor. Disconnect it before—"

"Before the guards hear it." Jack was already moving.

Doc appeared at the tunnel entrance moments later, his physician's bag in hand, face slick with sweat beneath his aging makeup. "Where is he?"

"Disabling the secondary line."

Doc's jaw tightened. "God help us."

They waited. The alarm continued its thin cry. Walter counted seconds—one Mississippi, two Mississippi—until the sound cut off with an abrupt mechanical cough.

"He did it," Doc breathed.

Then the gunshot came. Muffled, distant, followed by a shout and the sound of running feet. Doc was moving before Walter could react, his bag swinging, his usually measured gait replaced by something faster and less careful.

By the time Walter reached the utility closet, Doc was already inside—but not quick enough. The guard lay crumpled against the wall, his head bleeding where Jack had struck him. Doc was crouched beside them, and the guard's hand moved from behind his back with a stubborn finality—

The shot seemed to come from nowhere. Walter saw Doc jerk, saw the small dark blossom spread across his white shirt, saw the guard's pistol clatter to the floor as Doc squeezed his own trigger and put the man down. Then Doc crumpled, one hand pressed to his side, blood sliding between his fingers in thick, lambent ropes.

"No," Walter said. He ran. "No, no, no."

"Get the files," Doc gritted out. His voice held no fear—only urgency. "Walter. Get the files and go."

"What about you?"

"I'll hold off the guards." Doc forced a grim smile, blood on his teeth. "Two broken men meet in the dark—the banker and the deserter. Let them find me."

Walter stared at him. There was something in Doc's eyes—a weight finally unshouldered, a confession made before words could form.

"I'm not going to die in this bank, Walter," Doc said. "That's not the end I've written for myself. But if I am, I need you to know—"

A shout echoed from the far end of the corridor.

"Go," Doc said. "Now."

Walter grabbed the steel cabinet door, pulled out the manila folder, and fled into the darkness with Roy at his heels. Behind them, the sound of Doc's pistol spoke once more, and then again. By the time Walter burst through the maintenance exit into the alleys of Chicago, the folder was pressed against his chest like a living thing, and Doc O'Mara was still breathing.

He told himself that was enough.