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“It’s about time,” Ben Carver said once Jack and I finally made an appearance in the front office. “Some of us have been working in here instead of making out in the hallway.”
“You must have eyes in the back of your head, Carver,” Jack said, moving to standin front of the two long whiteboards that took up most of the room.
Ben Carver was probably a couple of years older than Jack, and they’d been friends for a lot of years. Carver was just under six feet and stocky with it. His hair was sandy blonde and his eyes a soft green that sparkled with good humor. Laugh lines spread out from his eyes. He still wore his holster and weapon just like Jack, even though we were safe inside the house.
“Good to see you, J.J.,” he said. “You just get prettier and prettier every time I see you. You ready to leave this loser and run away with me?”
“Not if you’re going to bring your wife along. I like to have my men all to myself. I’m selfish that way.”
His expression was deadpan but I could see the humor lurking in his eyes. “Weirdly enough, she said the same thing last time I proposed a three-way. You women are all the same.”
I nodded soberly. “Heartless bitches, each and every one.”
“Your man is in a mess here. I leave him alone for a few days and this is what happens.”
“You’re about to be in a mess once I rearrange that pretty face of yours. Now stop busting my chops and flirting with my woman.”
“I’m sorry? Did you really just call me your woman?” I leaned back against the edge of Jack’s desk and raised my brow.
“You’re a woman. And you’re mine. Thus, my woman. When we get married, I’m going to call you my wife, so you should probably be prepared for that.”
“Hey,” Carver said, grinning from ear to ear. “You guys are getting married? It’s about damned time.Can I get an invite? Do you know how many years I’ve had to listen to stories about you from this lovesick fool?”
I hid my smile behind my coffee cup. “You’re a good friend to my man, Carver.”
“Your man?” Jack asked.
“Just trying it on for size. I figure after we’re married I’ll be calling you asshole instead of my husband. At least according to Martha.”
“You’re going to pay for that later,” Jack said, tugging at the back of my hair.
“I sure as hell hope so.”
“You guys are making me uncomfortable. I haven’t had sex in weeks. Do you know how long you have to go without after your wife has a baby? It feels like forever and a day.”
“We don’t want to hear about your sex life, Carver. I feel sorry enough for your wife as it is. Let’s talk about murder instead.”
“My second favorite topic of conversation.” Carver pointed to the long whiteboard on the left side of the room. “Jack and I were setting this all up before you got here. We’ve got the crime scene photos of the ten men under Jack’s command, their TOD and COD listed below. Below that we have family members and financial reports. Wolfe’s body hasn’t been found yet, so I’ve got him over to the side along with all the same data.”
Carver maneuvered a smaller whiteboard so it stood next to the victims. I didn’t recognize the men in these photographs, but I had a feeling they were the men responsible for the heist that started this whole ball rolling.
“Seven men went inside the bank that day.One man was already on the inside—Eric Lieber. He was the bank manager and had keys and passcodes. The other five men trickled in over a period of forty-five minutes, dressed in suits and each holding a briefcase. Five o’clock came and the guard at the door locked them so no new customers could come in. At the same time, Lieber shut down the emergency security that would alert the authorities in case of robbery. He had to override it, and eventually someone would have been sent out to see if it was a glitch, but it bought them a few minutes.”
“The other five men drew their weapons and started firing. They had no plans to take hostages. Their goal was to kill anyone inside and move on. But one of the victims managed to dial 911 and leave the line open while everyone was being slaughtered.”
“Then we got the call and suited up,” Jack said.“Even in an emergency it takes us time to coordinate. The local police cordoned off the area, not that it would’ve done any good with the underground escape they’d planned on using. Another fifteen minutes for us to grab our equipment and for me to brief the team on the ride over. Everyone inside was already dead and they were already finessing their way through to the vaults when we arrived.”
“What do you mean finessing?” I asked. “I thought Lieber had the keys and passcodes.”
“He did, but not in their entirety. No man or woman would be given access to every part of the bank. You give your trusted officials portions of the whole, just enough to get into the smaller vaults and a partial code and retinal scan for the giant vault where most of the gold was kept.”
“Lieber’s brother, Karl, was the computer whiz, and was able to recreate the other parts of the passcodes to get into the main vault, including forging the retinal scans of the two other members needed to open the vault.Karl Lieber was more than a genius. I’ve never seen or heard of technology that sophisticated before, and the Pentagon swooped in and confiscated every bit of it before it could leak. We’re talking technology of the future, and we’ve got nothing in place to defend against it.”
“You sound envious,” I told Carver.
“You have no idea how badly I want to get my hands on those files.”Carver blew out a breath so the hair that had fallen over his forehead fluttered. “Anyway, both Liebers were single, but they left behind grieving parents who had no idea what their children were up to. They moved to London for a while because the embarrassment was so great. Apparently they’re rather well to do in the upper crust. They do still maintain a New York residence though.”
“Moving on, we’ve got Adam Boxer. He served three tours inAfghanistan before he came back to civilian life. He had a high aptitude for chemistry and math, and so the army thought he’d be a good fit for explosives. They were right about that. While the rest of the team was killing the hostages, he was wiring the building with explosives. Very sophisticated in nature. He left behind a wife, no children. His parents are also deceased.”
