The Last Kind Word (Mac McKenzie #10)

The Last Kind Word (Mac McKenzie #10) Page 62

“You don’t move,” he said. “You don’t wave arms and legs and camera cases in the air. Movement is what catches the eye. Movement is how the enemy sees you. Haven’t you ever been hunting?”

I assured him that I had. I don’t think he believed me.

“You’re a real desperado, aren’t you, Dyson? Fucking amateur is what you are; don’t even know how to walk in the goddamn woods without being seen. You think you know my business? You don’t know shit. Now you’re going to do exactly what I tell you exactly when I tell you or I’m going to leave you here.”

He didn’t like the smile on my face, but I couldn’t help myself, his lecture was so similar to the one I had given him in the cabin before the Silver Bay raid.

“You’ve been holding that in for quite a while, haven’t you?” I said.

“A little bit, yeah,” he said. Now he was smiling, too.

“Tell me what to do.”

“Get your camera out now,” he said. “Be ready by the time we’re in position. No sudden movements of any kind, I don’t care if a horsefly the size of an Apache gunship parks in your ear. Don’t even take deep breaths. No talking.”

“Yes, sir.”

I followed Roy back toward the clearing. He spent as much time looking behind him as he did looking forward. We found a position with an unobstructed view of both the gate and the front and side of the remote vault. From there I was able to take photos of all the cars that entered the compound, emphasis on their license plates. Assorted vehicles started arriving at 8:00 A.M. They’d roll up to the gatehouse, the drivers would lean out the window and punch a code into the keypad, the arm would rise, and they would motor down to the building, parking with their front bumpers nearly kissing the white brick. Afterward, the drivers would move to the gray metal door and punch a code into another keypad, wait a moment, then yank the door open. Three of the drivers were outfitted in crisp, clean guard uniforms. The others dressed as if they were planning on cleaning out their garages.

“It’s dirty work handling money,” I whispered. It was the first time I’d spoken since Roy’s lecture and I was surprised he didn’t whack me on the head again. Maybe he didn’t hear. “These people, there should be several containers of baby wipes on the tables where they count the money so they can clean off the black, waxy film that covers their fingers. It’s the reason bank tellers take so many sick days; they get ill from all the germs on the money they handle.”

“Huh,” Roy grunted.

I guess he did hear me.

An armored truck arrived at exactly 9:03 A.M. I wrote down the time in a small notebook. It had the name Mesabi Security printed on the side, except unlike the other trucks I had seen, this one was all shiny and new. It rolled up the gate and paused. The arm rose without the driver punching a code into the keypad. The truck followed the road leading to the remote vault, veered off near the end, circled the white building, and came to a stop in front of the large metal garage door. The door rolled up slowly; the truck went through it and stopped. I could see the rear bumper as the door slowly closed.

“Bandit trap,” I whispered. “Series of rooms. Impossible to open a door to the room in front of you without locking the door behind you first. Digital cameras cover each of the traps. If a door is left open for more than twenty seconds or so, alarms go off.”

“Hmm,” Roy said.

At 9:29, the armored truck exited the building from a door on the far side of the remote vault, circled the building till it reached the road, and drove toward the gate. The arm went up before the truck reached it. The truck didn’t even slow down, and it soon disappeared down the narrow dirt road. At 10:33, the first of the armored trucks from the Krueger terminal arrived, followed by the second truck at 10:38.

“The money handlers are loading cassettes with twenty-dollar bills that they took from the first armored truck,” I said. “The guards in these trucks will take the cassettes and load them into ATM machines along their route.”

This time Roy didn’t even grunt.

Both of the Mesabi Security trucks were gone by 11:15 A.M. Fifteen minutes later, half of the employees working in the remote vault left, too. They drifted back at about noon, and the other half left. Everyone was on hand at 1:30 P.M. when the third armored truck arrived. That truck departed at about 2:05, and a few minutes later, most of the employees left, too. We remained in our position, unmoving, until 3:00 P.M. Afterward, we slowly and cautiously worked our way around the white building, approaching it from different angles, taking several photographs. When we reached the backside of the building, I was surprised to see what appeared to be a narrow abandoned road that moved from the forest right up to the cyclone fence. Yet there was no opening in the fence.

“Probably used it when they were building the place,” Roy said.

“For what?”