“I want to talk to your supervisor. Get me—”
“Is there a problem?”
It’s Brady stepping up next to me. I thought he had left, and he got close quickly without me realizing it, which is more than a bit unsettling. I try to hide my surprise.
“Hello,” says the manager. “Are you with Collections as well?”
“Commerce Board.” He pulls out his ID and shows the man, who blinks at the little authentication display on the card’s surface. “I haven’t got a new ID yet, but I’m a Deputy Auditor. Brady Kearns.”
The short man in the suit eyes Brady, on edge and wondering what’s going on. Collections is part of the Board, and in theory Agents might sometimes work with Auditors on an institutional level, but I’m not sure they’ve ever partnered on an investigation. “Would you mind,” the manager asks carefully, “telling me what this is about?”
“General audit,” Brady answers, confident. “I’m conducting the yearly leak survey. You’re familiar with it?”
“Y-yes.”
“Agent Dare is involved for follow-up purposes to track down any rogue currency, but this is primarily academic. You understand the importance of getting the data we’re asking for in a timely manner?” Diplomatically he adds, “I do apologize for the lack of advance notice, but you understand how that could taint the study as well, I’m sure.”
“Mister, uhm, Kearns. I wish I could help, but as I’ve said, it’s against Bank policy.”
“Do I really have to trouble the Board with this?” With only a hint of threat to it, he asks, “You do know what an auditor does, right?”
The pudgy bank man looks half-panicked, unsure how to handle this. This scenario wouldn’t have been in the policy manual. “Let me see what I can do.” He walks away, hurried.
I glance at Brady, avoiding lasting eye contact. “Change of heart?” I ask, keeping the anger and relief out of my voice.
“I guess you could call it that.”
We wait around for a few minutes, not talking to each other, before the manager returns. “Come with me,” he says.
Brady and I exchange a glance, then follow the man to a door at the far end of the lobby, which he opens with a thumbprint on the little scanner concealed in the stone of the wall. We go through into a hallway lined on one side with office doors and on the other with long rows of cubicles in which employees in identical yellow-and-white button-down shirts field calls and work at monitors. After a couple of left turns, we arrive at a secure room with a metal-lined wall and a secured metal door. The manager enters a passcode and a thumbprint on the less-discreetly-concealed panel, the door hisses open, and we follow him inside.
The door swings shut with a soft thump as my eyes adjust to the lower light in the room. This is the security command center, a vault about five meters by ten meters in size, filled with control systems, secure data devices, a rack of very serious firearms, and, most importantly to me right now, a wall of monitors displaying security camera footage and an accompanying control station. Two big guys in black suits stand up from their chairs, sizing us up through dark-tinted tactical glasses that have small black earpieces extending from their frames, and probably view-data displays in the lenses as well.
“Gentlemen,” says the manager, “this is Commerce Board auditor Brady Kearns, and, and Agent, uhm… ”
“Dare,” I say, assuming that the beefy security guards are sizing me up behind those dark lenses. “Collections.”
“Right,” the manager continues. “I want you to help them find some security camera footage. Just of the lobby. Got it?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, saying “Thanks” as he goes back out the door, which quickly thumps shut behind him.
The guards step forward, and I realize suddenly that these men are probably armed and armored under their suits and cheesy yellow-and-white SCAPE neckties, and that the guns on the rack are probably keyed to their fingerprints. The odds would be against me in a firefight here, especially since Brady is undoubtedly unarmed and quite possibly not on my side anyway. The bigger guard, a thick-necked, dark-skinned guy with short-cropped hair and a disproportionately small and round head, steps forward. “Hello,” he says, motioning toward the chair in front of the security footage monitors. “Have a seat, and we’ll help you out.”
So much for a blood-soaked ambush, I guess. I step past him and sit down in the chair, and he leans over my shoulder pointing out items in the interface. “Each screen is a camera,” he says. “Except the big one in the center, which is variable but always plays a live feed. You can go back through dates with the calendar pad at the bottom.”
“Got it.” I pull out my phone, extend the screen, and flick open the spreadsheets with the cash withdrawals. “Let’s see,” I say aloud, finding the time code beside the earliest entry, “Arjun Chatterjee, withdrawal of eighty thousand units on four-twelve-oh-four at eleven thirty-seven… ” I scroll to the date, then to the time code. Before I hit play, I look up at the array of monitors. About half of the screens go blank, probably shut off by one of the guards at the manager’s request so that I can only see the lobby. About twenty are still on, though, and it’s overwhelming at first, all of them showing different angles of the floor, varying in scope from a wide, curvy and distorted image of the entire space to close shots of the front door. But then I see a cluster of screens showing downward angles of the tellers’ counters, clearly intended to capture cash exchanges.
“Watch these,” I tell Brady, pointing to the teller window monitors, “We’re looking for a withdrawal of eighty thousand units.”
I let the video play and watch the cluster of monitors for money changing hands. Some customers are taking out cash, but none of them seem to be taking very much. The minute counter ticks over, and I still haven’t seen a transaction large enough to be eighty thousand units, but I let it play a little longer, aware that on large withdrawals, banks ordinarily provide a security escort out of the building. But I don’t see one of those, either.
“You see it?” Brady asks.
“No. You?”
“Uhhh… ” he hesitates. “I couldn’t tell how much was on the counter during a few of these. Go back to thirty-seven forty?” I scroll back in the interface, then let it play. Brady leans over the desk, pointing to one of the monitors. “Here.”
I slow the video to half speed and watch closely. Hands keep getting in the way, so it’s hard to tell what denominations the currency chips are, but there’s an unrelated problem. “This is a woman. Arjun is a man’s name.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. And if he’s taking out that many bones, wouldn’t the bank offer a security escort to his vehicle?”
“Maybe there’s a lack of sync? In the time codes?”
I turn to one of the security guards who leans against the wall beside the weapons rack with a bored look on his face. “I got withdrawal and deposit records from an employer. Any reason that wouldn’t have the same time code as your videos here?”
The guard frowns. “Deposit and withdrawal receipts come from our system, and the cameras are linked into that same system. Should be the same, I think.”
He doesn’t sound authoritative or particularly knowledgeable on the subject, but from what I know about timestamping, I think he’s right. “Is there a certain cash amount that you’d provide a security escort for?”
“Five thousand,” he responds. “But you can request one at lower amounts.”
“Hmm,” Brady says.