Page 46 of Mission: Possible

"Solomon told me I could take some time off." Maddox raised his eyebrows. "He offered, but I didn't take him up on it," I continued. I sipped my wine and licked the residue from my lower lip. Maddox stared. "Fine. I get your point, but I've seen plenty of worse stuff. Psychologically damaging stuff."

"I doubt many other people in that bank with you could honestly say the same." Maddox lifted the wine glass to his lips again. "Nice," he added appreciatively. "Good choice. Very grown-up."

"What were you really doing there?" I asked.

"What were you doing there?"

I threw my hands in the air at his opacity. "Depositing cash from one of the clients."

"Really?" Maddox appeared skeptical.

"Yes! I'm not involved in anything. It was sheer coincidence that I happened to be there."

"I believe you, although when I first saw you I thought you were undercover or something. It seemed too crazy that you turned up in the middle of yet another crime scene, even for you."

I pulled a face. "Like it never happened before."

Maddox looked at me and shook his head wearily. I got his point; usually I turned up at a crime scene simply because I intended to go there, although I didn't always expect the results. That didn't mean I would let Maddox get away with deflecting. As much as I enjoyed his company, we met for a reason. I wanted information. And also, possibly, a second glass of wine.

"It's not my case but here's what I know," I told him. Honesty seemed the fastest shortcut to dragging some information from him. "The bank manager, Charlie Sampson, hired us to look for an item that was stolen during the robbery. He won't tell us what it is or why he wants it found, not even who the owner is, so we don’t know who really wants it. But I am convinced it's just one item. Do you know what it is? Or were you there because of something else stashed in that vault?"

Maddox leaned in. "This remains strictly between us?"

I nodded. "Absolutely."

"While I've no doubt many of the bank's security boxes are owned by perfectly normal people, the FBI got a tip a few months ago that the boxes are also being used by several less than reputable people. Obviously, we can't get a warrant or anything because we have nothing concrete to work from but we did conduct some surveillance on the bank. After a month, however, we had nothing so the plug was pulled."

"Was your intel credible?"

Maddox lifted one shoulder and dropped it again in a half-hearted shrug. "Hard to say, but I think so. It came from a small-time crook eager to make a deal. The DA who passed the information on was dubious about the crook's credibility. It landed on my desk so I looked deeper into it. While no deal was made, I asked around and felt reasonably sure the tip was solid. That led me to believe that items were being stashed in a very unassuming bank for long-term safekeeping, or that the vault might be a dead drop location."

"Dead drop location?"

"Someone puts something into a box and locks it," explained Maddox, miming the actions. "The key gets passed on sometime later, giving another person access to it and the ability to remove whatever was left there for them. It's a very simple and very secure way of doing business. This is all just conjecture, of course. Like I said, I couldn't get any evidence to allow me legal access."

"It's an interesting theory. Do you really think any of that could really be what's happening?"

"Honestly? I don't know. It was just an idea I latched onto because it could work. Probably just being fanciful."

"The bank boxes that were targeted have fingerprint scanners. Unless your dead droppers are passing on fingerprints or devised a very sophisticated system to bypass them, I think that theory falls flat."

"Like I said, fanciful."

"Do you have any theories with a bit more substance?"

"Ouch!" Maddox sipped again but when he winked, I knew he wasn't offended. "I have one or two more ideas based on the tip. The first is that the boxes are being used to store cash from black-market deals."

"Wouldn't it be better and faster just to launder the cash?"

"Probably, but that requires the specific knowledge and access to do so. Some of the currency could be foreign, which makes it a little trickier still. If it’s clean cash, maybe it’s being stored as back-up, like instant funds if someone needs to disappear quickly without a trace."

"What's your other theory?"

"A lot of the crime I investigate is high-end theft."

"Like the art forger you captured?" I asked, remembering a case I stumbled upon while conducting my own.

"Similar to that. Same high value but smaller in size. Do you remember a man named Ben Rafferty?"