“Can I be of assistance to you?” she said.
Maybe later, he thought. Out loud, he said, “I need to access one of your digital safety deposit boxes. The circumstances are unique, and I believe arrangements have been made for me.”
She seemed confused for a moment, asking him to hold on while she contacted the bank manager. A few seconds later, the manager emerged from one of the glass-encased offices on the far right side of the bank.
“Good evening. My name is Yakov Krutin. I received a call about twenty minutes ago with one of two remote access codes to a safety deposit box. Do you have the second code?”
“Yes. A twenty-four digit code,” he said, reaching into his pocket for his cell phone.
The number had been sent to him via text by his immediate boss. The order to retrieve the box’s contents had been sent straight to him a few minutes ago by their Brigadier, Matvey Penkin, which made this a priority task.
“Please follow me,” the manager said and started walking toward a hallway leading deeper into the bank.
They pushed through a set of rich wooden doors into a harsh fluorescent environment that stood in stark contrast to the welcome, subtle lighting of the lobby. A second guard stood up from a chair at a small computer station and picked up an assault rifle similar to the one held by the guard in the lobby. Sergei guessed it was an AKS-74U, a short barreled, folding stock version of the Russian service rifle he’d carried as a conscript. The guard cradled it in a non-threatening manner and nodded as they passed through another set of doors into the safety deposit area.
The room extended at least twenty feet into the building, measuring at least fifteen feet wide. Boxes of varying size lined the walls, flush with each other. The larger boxes were located at the bottom, extending upward to several rows of standard sized boxes. The boxes on the flanking walls contained the same dual key mechanism typically used by banks to open safety deposit boxes. Once the key holder’s identity was confirmed as the owner of the box, the bank manager and key holder would simultaneously insert their keys, opening the drawer. Another metal container typically sat inside the drawer, providing immediate privacy from the bank staff. The contents of the box were examined by the key holder in a nearby, private room.
In this case, the door to this private area stood in the center of the room’s far wall. The rest of the wall contained digital safety deposit boxes, one of which contained the items he had been sent to retrieve. He had never heard of a digital safety deposit box until tonight. A curious development in the world of banking, they offered more flexibility in terms of content retrieval, since a digital code replaced the need to present a physical key. The box’s owner could still request the additional security layer of identity confirmation, but this had become less common and didn’t serve the most common purpose of these boxes. Money drops.
The proliferation of digital boxes across Europe, and particularly Moscow, served organized crime well, allowing them to not only hide money effectively, but to disburse it anonymously to anyone given the second code. Born in Russia, the idea was quickly spreading west, creating serious difficulty for federal law enforcement agencies investigating the major drug cartels and organized crime gangs. The days of staking out the big money drops were evaporating, as money changed hands behind vault doors, free from the prying eyes and ears of the police.
The bank manager approached a row of boxes at chest height to the right of the door and slid open a small keypad on the front of the box.
“I’ll enter the first code, and then you’ll have three tries to enter your code. The box will automatically lock after a third unsuccessful attempt, so please take you time. There is no rush. Make sure to press enter after all of the digits appear. If you don’t mind,” he said, waiting patiently for Sergei to face a different direction.
He heard the man pushing the buttons on the keypad and wondered what would happen if the first code was entered incorrectly. A few moments later, the manager asked him to enter the code. He removed his cell phone and approached the box, glancing over his shoulder at the manager, who had started to pace toward the center of the room with his hands behind his back. He eyed the phone’s screen and carefully entered the code, confirming that the red numbers on the small, thin digital screen matched the numbers on his cell phone. He pressed enter, and a green light blinked, followed by several beeps and the hushed rumbling of mechanisms in the wall. The bank official appeared out of nowhere next to him.
“Most excellent. You may open the drawer and retrieve the contents. The room through this door will assure you complete privacy. When you are finished, there is a telephone mounted on the wall. Simply pick up the phone and let whomever answers know that you are done. I will arrive shortly after that to escort you to the lobby. Do you anticipate needing a bag to carry the contents?”
“Yes.”
“You will find a low cabinet on the far side of this room filled with a variety of sturdy bags. Take whichever best suits your needs. If you have any questions after I leave, you can reach me on the phone,” he said and nodded, stepping back.
“Thank you,” Sergei said.
When the outer doors to the room clicked shut, Sergei opened the one-foot-by-one-foot drawer and reached inside, removing a metal case. He glanced at the door again, wondering what the low-wage security guard thought of the wealth concentrated in this room. The thought made him uneasy. The money and secrets stashed in this room remained frustratingly out of the guard’s grasp most of the day, until someone like Sergei arrived. It had to drive the guard insane with curiosity. Was Sergei here to collect ten million rubles or some old rich geezer’s last will and testament? Diamonds? Gold? He could never work a job like this. Every person that walked through those doors represented a life-changing gamble.
He entered the private room, which contained a simple metal table surrounded by four equally utilitarian metal chairs. The cabinet sat against the far wall as promised, just a few feet from the table, and a single black phone hung on the wall to the left of the door. Out of habit, he scanned the room for cameras or any other surveillance devices and found none. Time to verify the contents and get the fuck out of here. He was expected to meet his boss at an apartment complex in the Tverskoy District by six-thirty, which would take a near superhuman effort at this time of the day.
The metal slid open to reveal three individually secured stacks of one hundred dollar bills, a worn three-by-five inch notebook, and a small thumb drive. Exactly what he had been told to expect. He picked up one of the stacks, which measured roughly three inches thick, and thumbed through one of the corners slowly. As far as he could tell, the entire stack contained crisp one hundred dollar bills. He repeated the process for the two remaining stacks. Two hundred thousand U.S. dollars was one of the largest amounts he had been tasked to handle, and he had no intention of fucking this up. Anything could go wrong with a drop like this, robbery being the least of his problems.
If one of the stacks had been padded with one dollar bills, and he didn’t document the fact immediately upon discovery, he’d likely end up in the Moscow river with his throat slashed, or even worse, dissolved alive in some warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Satisfied that all of the bills were hundreds, he selected a small faux leather tote bag from the cabinet and placed the contents of the box inside. A quick call to Mr. Krutin put him back into his car on Leninsky Avenue without incident. The time on his watch read six-twelve. No way in hell he would make it to Tverskoy during rush hour.