Page 20 of Mission: Possible

"It seems you already know who I am," said Charles. "Neither my introduction or the recent incident came as any surprise to you."

"That's correct. We know you had a terribly frightening experience, Mr. Sampson," I said. "I wish I could have helped more at the time."

"I prefer that you call me Charlie. I've been the bank manager of that branch of First Eastern for five years and worked in the banking industry my whole life. I never witnessed a bank robbery before, never mind getting involved in one."

"And are you involved?" asked Solomon. He placed Garrett's courtesy card on the table between us. I was sure if I had a measuring tape, I would find the distance equal between us, which was both weird and precise.

Charlie huffed a laugh. "Not like that, no."

"Can you tell me how you came by this card?"

"Lieutenant Graves gave it to me yesterday after he took my statement about the robbery. He suggested I call you as you have a lot of experience in security matters." Charlie stopped talking except for a quick "thanks" when Fletcher returned and deposited a small bottle of water and a glass on the table before leaving without a word.

"You want us to look into your security and see why it failed? The police will do that on taxpayer money." Solomon's poker face revealed nothing but I sensed some confusion. He was right. Charlie didn't need us to investigate anything, not when the police would be crawling all over the scene and interviewing everyone at the bank.

"No. You're correct. The police will do that and I trust them to find out how such a thing could occur. Before you ask, I doubt this was an inside job. I have unbounded faith in all of my employees and trust them implicitly. Maybe if the robbers took cash as it was being delivered, it would have been a different story. That could have implicated persons beyond my branch, but that's not what happened here."

"Not a penny was stolen," I said, recalling the article.

"Not exactly," said Charlie.

"But something was," said Solomon. "And you want us to find out how?"

"I don't really carehowthey stole it. I just want the item back."

"Ah." Solomon nodded now and reclined slightly in his seat. "You want us to find it. We can potentially do that. What is the item you seek?"

Charlie hesitated. "That's the whole problem. I don't know."

"You don't know?" I asked.

"That's correct. I don't know."

"You don't know? Or you don't want us to know?" asked Solomon. I flashed him a surprised look at the odd question.

Once more, Charlie hesitated. "I don't know," he said after a long pause.

"Then how do you expect us to find it? How would we even know if we found it?" Solomon folded his arms across his chest and fixed Charlie with adon't mess with melook.

"All very good questions. I have some information that could help you with your search, and once you've found something, I might be able to confirm it as the right item."

"Whom does the item belong to? The bank or a client?"

"A client."

"And their name is...?"

"I can't tell you that."

The vein in Solomon's temple began to bulge. "And the estimated value of the item?" he asked.

"Hard to say."

Solomon stared but Charlie didn't flinch. "Whatcanyou tell us?" asked Solomon.

Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out a cellphone. "I managed to take a photo of the scene in the vault last night. I thought that might help you."

"Let me see," said Solomon, holding out his hand.