Silverfish Ch. 03

The chronological order of my stories is as follows:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, The Swap series, Interludes 6-10, The Murdered Football Player Series, Case of the Black Widow series, Teresa's Christmas Story, The Case of the Black Badge series, A Case of Revenge series, Teresa's Summer Race, The Trilogy series, Dark Side Of The Force series, Caught In The Act series, Case of the Murdered Bride series, The Credit Card Caper series, The Hot Wives Investment Club series, Seriously Inconvenienced series, Case of the Paper Trail series, Christmas Mystery Theater, The Porno Set Mystery series, The Medical Murder Mystery series, The Eightfold Fence series, Pale Morning Light series.

Silverfish, Ch. 01-03

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

*****

Part 15 - The Net

2:00am, Monday morning, March 16th. The previous day had been the Ides of March, the day Julius Caesar was assassinated. It was on March 15th one year before that there was an attempt to assassinate me in the street. As always, I remembered how I was able to do what I do:

I think of Laura. The rest is easy.

And it was going to be easy tonight, I hoped. We were waiting inside the bank vault for the criminal 'Silverfish' to arrive and take the proceeds of the Reverend Robert Patterson's 'love offering', collected after his moving sermon at First Baptist Church. The church's main auditorium could hold more than 2000 people, and it was an overflow capacity in the chamber to hear the Reverend Patterson.

The police entourage had carried the money to the bank. On the way to Second National Bank, everyone had been especially watchful. A few police cars stopped at the bank, where people with a bag of money were admitted before the doors were closed and the blinds drawn. The rest of the entourage took the Reverend Patterson and his group back to the Hyatt Hotel. Police details covered the parking lot, lobby and the floor where the Oldeeds Group's rooms were.

No one seemed to take notice the small, two-car entourage that left First Baptist about 30 minutes after the larger contingent. Inside the front car was Pastor Bundy and an assistant, along with a police driver. In the second car was myself and Cindy, with a police driver.

After counting and depositing the money, Pastor Bundy and the bank official left, securing the bank in pitch darkness.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"I don't like this." said Henry R. Wargrave as he watched from the back of a black car parked a distance from the County Regional Bank. His bodyguard was in the front passenger seat. "Something's not right."

Two car door opened. The car driver got in behind the wheel, and a man dressed in all black got in back and sat by Wargrave. He was The Silverfish. "It's secure, sir. We used thermal imaging. Nobody's hiding inside. I got word from Second National; they've got three people hiding in a back office there, they lit up the thermal imagers like Christmas trees."

"All right." said Wargrave. "Something's not right, but damned if I can see what it is. See that black car parked next to the Depot building?" He pointed at a black car in the distance. "The keys are in the ignition. Get to the bypass, curl up and go west out of State. Park behind the empty farmhouse at the location I gave you, and relax until the morning. Plan to meet my agent at 8:00am at the Country Breakfast Diner on the west side of Town. You'll swap keys while eating and take each other's cars. Keep the money that'll be in your getaway car; it's yours. Drive to California and lose yourself in the Bay Area. I'll be in touch in the next couple of months, standard contact method."

"Yes sir." said Silverfish. "By the way, I'm just enormously curious: why are you doing this? It's not like you need the money, sir."

"For the same reason you are, my friend." said Wargrave. "Because these are my instructions. Okay, at your leisure, go. Once you get out of the car, I'm pulling out. Good luck."

"On my way." said Silverfish. He got out of the car, hearing the engine crank, and seconds later he was watching the car's taillights disappear down the road.

One more check with the thermal imaging device, seeing nothing. Then he put on the silk, full-face ski mask, only his eyes showing. He walked swiftly to the back door of the bank and used the code to turn off the alarm. To be sure, he activated a switch that caused the phone system to go down. Residents shouldn't notice until the morning, and it would ensure any unknown secondary alarm systems couldn't notify the Town & County Police of his presence at the bank. He needed the Iron Crowbar and his fellow officers sitting at Second National Back to continue to wait for him there. Alerting them to his presence here would make it a most very bad day for him.

The key he'd been given worked perfectly; he unlocked the back door and walked in. Locking the outer door from the inside, he moved to the next set of doors, which also opened with the same key. He moved into the dark lobby.

Night vision goggles got him to the vault door, but he'd need a small light to see the numbers and dial the combination to open the large vault door. Crouching at the door, he sat on his knees, immobile, listening intently for the least sound. He could hear light traffic in the distance, but no car came up the road that led directly to the bank.

Finally, he dialed the combination, and at the last number he heard a sharp, loud click. He turned the big wheel, which began moving the large steel rods out of their slots. Round and round and round and round the wheel went. When it stopped, he pulled hard on the huge steel door. It was so well balanced that he alone could pull it open with a bit of effort.

Just as he stepped into the vault, he turned on his flashlight-

"UUHK!" he gasped. Hands had grabbed him and hurled him to the floor! He was on his belly, his hands being pulled behind him, a huge weight on his back. He heard as well as felt handcuffs being snapped onto his wrists.

"Okay, come on in." he heard a voice say into a radio. Seconds later the entire parking lot was bathed in the blinding blue and white LED lights of police vehicles. Officers poured in as the lights came on. Silverfish was grabbed and dragged into the lobby, and put in a sitting position on the floor as the indoor lights of the bank were turned on.

He looked up at the tall, broad-shouldered man in the Tilley Hat with Airborne wings and a police badge affixed, a light trenchcoat covering his black-clad body, a red crowbar in his hands. Next to him was a platinum blonde woman in all black, a blue crowbar... and the silver Sharpie she had removed from his pocket.

"Mr. Silverfish, I presume." said the man. "My name is Commander Donald Troy. It was so kind of you to visit us tonight... Mr. Jesse Keynes, Chief Accounting Officer of Acme Consolidated, Inc."

Only after saying his name did I reach down and remove the perp's mask. Indeed it was the face of Jesse Keynes that looked up at us.

"What the hell is this?" Keynes asked, clearly shocked.

"This... is the Iron Crowbar at work, Mr. Keynes." said Cindy. "Not much gets by this man, and it was stupid, very very stupid, of you to draw his attention to yourself like you did."

"Sergeant, read the man his rights, and make sure to videotape yourself doing so." I said. This was done rapidly, then I squatted down next to the still-stunned Keynes.

"What this is, Mr. Keynes, is that you are under arrest for burgling this bank. My partner and I were inside the vault itself, where your thermal imaging device did not detect us. We were expecting a visit from you tonight, Mr. Keynes... a.k.a. Silverfish. Okay, guys, take him to Headquarters and book him, then take him to Interrogation-1..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The powerful lawyer from Gresham & Mason, P.C. had appeared at Headquarters almost at the same time I did, insisting on being Keynes' legal counsel. I had him escorted to Interrogation-1, and told him to confer with his client within the fifteen minutes it would take me to get in there.

Cindy and I changed clothes, into Police Uniforms with light blue shirts, darker blue soft shoulderboards with our ranks, darker blue pants with piping (Cindy's light blue, mine yellow).

We entered Interrogation-1 and sat down. Keynes and his lawyer opposite us. Sergeant Rudistan was standing in the corner behind them; he always volunteered to do this for the big interrogations, I noted with some internal amusement.

"So what will you offer for my client's truthful testimony?" asked the lawyer.

"Come on, Counselor," I replied, "it's three o'clock in the morning, but I am not asleep at the wheel here. Your client gets no deals at all. He knows, as you do, that his only chance to live is to tell everything he knows before the Big Man comes for him."

"You've got nothing." said Keynes. "You caught me in one little country bank. So what?" I pointed my pen towards the door. Into the room from the anteroom bounded Detective Joanne Cummings, wearing light blue shirt with darker blue shoulderboards of rank, and a blue skirt and medium black pumps.

"Why Mr. Keynes, what a surprise to see you here!" Joanne gushed as she handed me a piece of paper. "I guess I won't have a chance to talk with you about accounting, after all." Keynes' face fell a bit as Joanne turned to go, a bright smile on her pretty face.

"As you can tell, Mr. Keynes," I said, "It's been pretty obvious to us who the Silverfish is for quite a while. Detective 'Carnes' there got a good piece of information from you... about how you made sure the deposits were in, so that when you stole them it was like doubling your money at the roulette wheel."

I continued: "All I needed to do was set a trap for the Silverfish, who thought he could really humiliate me by hitting the bank he thought I was not at, while I sat at the bank he thought I was sitting at... a trap which we effectively sprang upon you tonight." I leaned forward. "Now why don't you come correct and talk. I'll get you the best deal I can, and maybe I can keep you alive long enough to do your time and get out."

"Plead the Fifth now, don't say anything more." said the lawyer. "That's truly your only hope here."

"I waive my right to counsel." said Keynes. "This man does not represent me. I'll cooperate with you." Surprisingly, the expensive lawyer did not argue; he simply stood up to go.

"Counselor," I said as the lawyer moved to the door, "I'm getting real tired of seeing Gresham & Mason legal beagles in my Interrogation rooms." I said. "You'd-"

"We'll be in here when we damn well need to, in order to protect our clients from your abuse!" the lawyer thundered, menace in his voice. I held up my hand.

"You didn't let me finish." I said, looking the lawyer squarely in the eyes. "I know you're here to protect your client's... your real client's... interests much more than the people I have brought in here. Tell your boss that my patience is wearing thin... and that I'm coming after him."

The lawyer glared at me, but I could see that he was trying to gauge if I was bluffing, and how much I really did know. After a moment, he left.

"Okay, Mr. Keynes," I said, "you were saying? Or shall I tell you, and you just fill in the gaps, okay?"

"Why do I get the feeling you really could do that?" Keynes said, a half-smile on his ruggedly handsome face. Cindy could not hide a smile, either.

"You were in a high position with the Oldeeds Ministries empire." I said. "Inside the Accounting Group. You and others, including Oldeeds himself if I don't miss my guess, came up with the idea to steal the money that you deposited in the banks after the generous donations of Oldeeds' followers. You bragged to Joanne that you personally made the arrangements with the banks. So you knew which bank it was, and all you needed was some information about the banks." Jesse's eyes again showed defeat when I mentioned Joanne's visit to him.

"So, you worked with someone, a friend of Jonas Oldeeds, who had resources to get the information of any bank you needed. Maybe you were told which bank to use beforehand, but in any case you obtained the security codes or means to disable the security, as well as the vault combinations themselves."

"You then went in and, perhaps with a confederate or two, took all the cash. Since it wasn't sequentially numbered or delivered by the Federal Reserve, it was virtually untraceable. And if Oldeeds got $300,000 in donations, they were getting $300,000 in stolen money, effectively doubling their money. The legal money went to the Ministries, the stolen money to the international human trafficking operations-"

"Let me tell you right now: I had nothing to do with human trafficking, and I never touched an underaged girl. I never needed that shit." Keynes said. I could tell in his eyes that he was being sincere.

"What do you know about that?" I asked.

"Not enough to help the FBI get a conviction of anyone, if that's what you're asking for." said Keynes. "Jonas never let people inside his legitimate Ministries, which included me, work for or with the dark side of that business. He always kept the two separated, like the 'A' and 'B' sections of the Coca-Cola factory. He's dead, so you'll never arrest him, and I simply don't have the evidence nor the knowledge of those operations for you to get anyone else."

"Okay, but I'm right that the money went to that stuff?"

"Some of it." Keynes replied. "I kept some off the top for doing the jobs. A tenth. I banked a million in addition to the generous salary Jonas paid me. Jonas also stuffed some political pockets with the dirty money, and gave some bonuses to his top people."

"Why did you stop at ten million?" Cindy asked.

"The initial idea was to take the offerings, steal the cash from the bank, and we'd have double for nothing, so to speak, as you said a minute ago." said Keynes. "Jonas used the money for seed money for some of his international smuggling schemes. We knew those would pay off for many tens of millions over time. As we neared ten million, Jonas and I discussed stopping at that point. I knew my luck had been more than good and that it would run out if I pushed it. Jonas didn't need the money any more. So after the last haul, I posted a farewell message and retired. I didn't rob a bank again until this past week."

"And why did you do that job?" I asked. "To tweak me?"

"I did it because my boss told me to." Keynes said with alacrity. "And that included writing messages about 'Hello Iron Crowbar' and then drawing crowbars. I didn't even know who you were until you were standing over me with that red crowbar at the bank a few hours ago."

"See, partner?" I said, addressing Cindy. "I'm not nearly as famous as you think I am."

"So you say." said Cindy. "Mr. Keynes, is your boss Henry R. Wargrave?" The question took me by surprise. Why did Cindy ask that so directly? I wondered. Gears started turning in my head.

"He's my boss at Acme, if that's what you mean." said Keynes. "But he's not the guy who helped me with the bank jobs, nor told me to do the ones this past week. And before you ask, I don't know for sure who my boss is. He's known as the Shadow Man to us, and possibly other names to others. He tries to keep the left hand from knowing what the right hand is doing, to quote a Biblical phrase."

That struck me, and set more gears in motion in my head. I realized that I had just heard something very, very important. But I continued with my line of questioning as I said as if musing: "So he could be standing next to you, and you'd never know who he is."

"Yeah, essentially." Keynes said. "He gave orders by telephone or email, sometimes through Mr. Wargrave."

"Did Wargrave ever have you do anything illegal?" Cindy asked. She was really pushing the Wargrave angle, I noted as Keynes smiled.

"Not until tonight." answered Keynes. "I was too public a figure, I was listed on his tax and corporate papers. He only had me do legit stuff until these last four bank jobs the past few days."

"That may technically be correct." I said. "And up to this point, Mr. Keynes, you've been telling the truth, at least I believe you have. But you're not telling the truth about Wargrave. I think you know a lot more."

"Best of luck with that." Keynes said. And then I had the insight. I understood what Keynes was doing. I had nothing personally against him, so I felt the need to give him a warning.

I looked the man dead in the eye and said "Mr. Keynes, you need to be much more careful. This is a dangerous game you are playing here. Both ends against the middle. It can easily get you killed."

Keynes peered hard at me, as did Cindy. Keynes's eyes showed me that he understood, fully understood, what I had meant. He knew that I knew.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door from the anteroom, and Jack Muscone peeked his head in. I rose and came into the anteroom.

"He's yours." I said. "He needs to be in Federal custody. Protective custody, too, or he's going to come over all dead. We have the bank burglary charge, but he's admitted to the Silverfish crime spree, and the U.S. Attorneys can overcome the Statue of Limitations problem."

"I heard the last bit of it." Muscone said. "Not much on Wargrave?"

"Not yet. But I suspect he's going to sing, though he'll pretend to make you force it out of him after your best interrogators spend hours with him." I said. "But in the end, he'll sing like a bird about Wargrave, and he'll likely give you what you need to bring down Wargrave, or at least get on the right path."

"Oh really?" Muscone said, surprised. "How do you know?"

"I don't know," I replied, "but I'm guessing that Silverfish here is being used, and will follow the script he's been given. He may come to realize it, so act fast."

"Thanks, Don." said Jack Muscone. "Okay, we'll take him."

"Let me just ask one more question." I said. I went inside the Interrogation Room again. "Mr. Keynes, do you know a Mr. Harkins of the Second National Bank here in Town?"

"No sir, never heard of him." said Keynes.

"So you wouldn't know where he is?" I asked. "Think about it, it's important."

"No, sorry, I have no idea." said Keynes. I knew he was telling the truth.

An opportunity missed.

Part 16 - Solution

"This is Bettina Wurtzburg, KXTC Channel Two News!" yelled the lovely redhead reporterette from in front of County Regional Bank at 7:00am Monday, March 16th. "Channel Two News is bringing you live coverage from County Regional Bank, where a burglary was detected and defeated by Commander Donald Troy of the Town & County Police Department last night!"

"And my Team, Bettina, and my Team." I said to the TV screen in MCD.

Bettina continued: "Channel Two News has learned that the bank robber was a man known to the FBI as The Silverfish, who committed a string of bank heists across the nation about a decade ago. His real name is Jesse Keynes, a high-level accountant at Acme Consolidated in the City. Acme Consolidated issued a statement this morning that they were not aware of any of Keynes's crimes, and will make a further statement when they learn more themselves. The FBI said in a statement that it is not known why someone in Keynes' position would resort to robbing banks, but Keynes was caught in the act as he tried to take the love offering collected for the Reverend Robert Patterson after his rousing revival sermon at First Baptist Church last night..."