Seven Silent Men (18 page)

“No suspect then, even out of town?”

A thumbs-down, a headshake. “The only thing they're sure of is that the bank got robbed and the crooks flooded the tunnels for their getaway.”

“Do they have any idea when over the weekend the bank was scored?”

“Nope.”

“I suppose it would be asking too much for them to know where the water for flooding came from.”

Cub nodded.

“Is that what you guys are after, where the water came from?” Les Kebbon said. “Hell, I know where it comes from. It comes from Tomahawk Hill reservoir.”

“Who told you that, the water commissioner?” asked Jez.

“No, Chet Chomsky. The reporter on KTY who's thick with the mayor and city hall crowd. He's usually accurate. E. G. and me just heard him on the car radio driving over here. Chet Chomsky said the Tomahawk reservoir reported losing millions of gallons of water over the weekend and that the city engineers are sure this is the water that flooded the tunnels … only they don't know where it went to get there.”

“How the hell can you lose millions of gallons of water and not know where it went?” Jez protested.

“I'm only reporting what Chet Chomsky reported,” Kebbon said. “He said the main water ducts leading from the reservoir didn't show any unusual amounts of water coming through over the weekend, leastways not forty to fifty million gallons. That's what they estimate was lost, forty to fifty million. Chomsky said all kinds of old tunnels and water systems everyone's forgotten about are all over the place. He said the tunnels right under the bank, the ones that flooded, have been identified as being part of an old system called CCC or something. But none of the engineers can figure out how the hell the millions of gallons from the reservoir got way the hell over to the CCC tunnel at the bank. There's nothing connecting them that anyone knows of. He said a state geologist thinks the tunnel flooding is directly related to the mud slides and explosions west of town. According to WQG, which we were listening to earlier, the mud is so serious the governor's thinking of declaring west Prairie Port a disaster area. Getting back to Chet Chomsky, he said the flooding has to do with the electrical dimouts too.”

“Sounds like we should hire Chet Chomsky,” Happy de Camp said.

“Promise him a uniform and six-shooter and a-running he'll come,” Les Kebbon said. “Chomsky is a trooper freak. He's a member of every auxiliary state police organization that lets him buy a fancy uniform and carry pearl-handled pistols. He loves riding in prowl cars. Maybe that's why his county crime information is usually accurate. He's buddy-buddy with one helluva lot of state troopers and sheriff's deputies. But the city cops hate him.”

Strom surveyed the conferees. “Is there anything else we know about the perpetration? Any first-, second- or third-hand data?”

No one at the table said anything.

Strom laid aside his pencil. “Like it or not, lads, I'd say we are smack-dab back at the basics. Back to the WhoWhatWhyWhereWhenHows, and in no particular order.” He was on his feet pacing and thinking aloud. “Why did the perpetrators select Mormon State in the first place? And When? When exactly, and How did they enter the caves to perpetrate the actual theft? What, precisely, was the
modus operandi?
What specific equipment did the MO dictate be brought along? Who are they? How many are they? Where have they gone? And When? When! We'll look a fine lot of fools if we can't even establish When the haul came down.”

John Lars Sunstrom's abilities as an organizer and administrator were generally unrecognized beyond the confines of the residency. Now freshly invested with what he considered to be temporary but near irrevocable authority by J. Edgar Hoover, he found himself in top form.

Prairie Port's complement of seventeen resident agents, Strom told the men seated at the table, would be split into two groups, a three-man Caretaker Force and a Strike Force of the remaining operatives. The Caretakers would immediately evaluate the status of all five hundred and seventy-one investigations currently being conducted by the resident office. High-priority cases would stay within the residency's purview and be worked on by the Caretakers. Everything else, the bulk of the investigations, would be shunted on to Denis Corticun and the thirty backup agents expected at Prairie Port in the coming hours. The Caretakers would assist the backups with these cases as best they could. Strom suggested the building's landlord be called at once by Happy de Camp and space on the empty floor above the residency be rented short term to provide offices for the new arrivals. Hap was further instructed to arrange billeting and whatever else might be needed to accommodate Corticun and the thirty other out-of-towners.

The three-man Caretaker team would, in short, relieve the fourteen-man Strike Force of all responsibilities other than pursuing Romor 91. This pursuit would follow soon-to-be-detailed Channels of Investigation, and whatever assistance might be required could be provided by the support personnel headed by Denis Corticun. Should the Caretakers have any availability, they too would assist on Romor 91.

Pacing and pointing, Strom then began to list what the individual Channels of Investigation would be and exactly which ones each of the fourteen resident agents would be assigned to.

Heck Bevins, hurrying into the conference room with Ralph Dafney, sensed a difference in Strom. A confidence he had not seen before. Ralph Dafney felt it was more a sort of puckishness. What Billy Yates and most agents already at the table took note of was Strom's insistence, while rattling off the channels and channel assignments, on answers to three questions: When did thirty-one million dollars arrive at Mormon State National Bank? How, precisely, did it get there? When exactly, between the time the assistant manager locked up on Friday afternoon and the police arrived early Sunday morning, was Mormon State National Bank robbed?

Early afternoon papers in Prairie Port and across the country headlined what radio newscasters had been bulletining since J. Edgar Hoover made his speech hours before, the largest cash robbery in history. The most immediate response from the local populace was to rubberneck in front of the Mormon State Bank, thereby creating a minor traffic jam in the area. The national response was reflected in a run on Prairie Port hotel and motel rooms by out-of-town media people.

At 11:45
A
.
M
. Strom noticed a headline in one of the papers an agent had brought him. “My God,” he said to Jez, “I forgot the reporters outside.”

“Don't worry, Washington will make up for it,” Jez assured him. Strom did not listen, hurried out into the anteroom … was swallowed up by the crunch of press people.

The first interview to be conducted by any member of the Prairie Port residency since the creation of Romor 91 was unofficial and occurred at 12:05
P
.
M
., when a curious Billy Yates, waiting for assignment, decided to call the Prairie Port Sewerage Department. Since repairmen had temporarily shut down the FBI office switchboard, Yates took the back elevator down to a lobby paybooth. The only person not out to lunch was a cheery secretary. Yates identified himself, explained this was an unofficial call and asked if the electrical power shortages over the last week or so had in any way affected the electrical equipment used by the department. Had it ever, he was told. It had knocked all the central control room's measuring gauges for a loop. No one had the vaguest idea what had gone through the sewerage system since Friday afternoon. Whole sections of tunnel had been nearly demolished, but there was no way of knowing when or by how much water. What was true for the sewerage monitoring system was true for the Water Department. If he didn't believe her, Yates was told, call the Water Department. He did call. The secretary there refused to give out any information.

The first official communication Washington headquarters received from the originating office of Romor 91 occurred at 2:07
P.M.,
when acting ASRA Cub Hennessy placed a call over the newly repaired switchboard and requested detailed information on the shipment of $31,000,000 to Mormon State National Bank.

The first official communication the Romor 91 office received from headquarters was logged into the Prairie Port communications book at 2:55
P
.
M
.

“What's the idea of calling headquarters and not calling us?” Harlon Quinton, Corticun's aide-de-camp, demanded.

“I didn't know we were supposed to,” Cub replied.

“Like hell you didn't. We've been calling you all day.”

“Then you'll know our phones went out.”

“That's no excuse. When we call we expect an immediate answer. That's how it's going to be.”

“How what's going to be?”

“Chain of command. You answer to us, mister. When we call we expect an immediate response.”

“Then I'll give you one.” Cub, without further ado, hung up.

The first official report from Prairie Port to Washington began at 3:10
P.M.,
after Denis Corticun called Strom Sunstrom and politely apologized for the behavior of Harlon Quinton. Corticun said there was no doubt Strom was in total charge of Romor 91. Again Corticun apologized for Harlon Quinton … casually asked what progress was being made. Strom, without hesitation and calmly, began rattling off the Channels of Investigation to be followed by the Prairie Port residency: Mormon State National Bank Premises and Personnel; Shipment of $31,000,000 to Mormon State Bank; U.S. Treasury Department Procedures for Transport and Destruction of Currency; Inspection of Tunnels, Caves and Underground Systems Running Under or Near Bank; Inspection of Tunnels, Caves and Underground Systems Running North and South of Bank Including Sewerage and Water Department Systems of City of Prairie Port; Background of All Persons Having Access Physically and/or Informationally to Such Tunnels, Caves and Systems; Inspection of Dams, Locks and Flood-Control Systems Twenty Miles North of Bank; Inspection of Mud Explosions West of City to Determine Relationship with Crime, If Any; Reconstruction of Crime; Projection of Potential Equipment Utilized in Crime; Check of All Retail and Wholesale Stores Stocking Such Equipment; Projected Profile on Perpetrators; Local and State Check on All Known Criminals with “Capacity to Perpetrate” Mormon State-Type Crime; Nationwide and Interpol Check for Known Criminals with “Capacity to Perpetrate”; Local Check on Airports, Bus and Rail Terminals and Hotels, Motels and Rooming Houses for Strangers in Prairie Port at Time of Perpetration; Neighborhood Checks to Find Eyewitnesses at or Near Bank Premises; Area Checks for Eyewitnesses at Location Downstream from Bank Where Agent Brewmeister Was Found; Nationwide Alert for “Big Spenders” of Unmarked Money; Interpol Alert for Large Shipments or Deposits of U.S. Currency; Crime Lab Examination of Robbery Premises, Rubber Raft, Rope, Money Bag; List of the Unknown Perpetrators on Ten Most Wanted List; Alerts to City, State and Out-of-State Law-Enforcement Agencies on Rented or Stolen Vehicles Possibly Used by Perpetrators; Media Monitoring for Additional Leads; Establishment of Emergency Lines of Communication with Public Regarding Additional Leads; Assignment of Special Liaisons to City, County, State Law-Enforcement Agencies; Contacting of Informants; Development of Additional Informants.

Corticun was also told by Sunstrom that assignments of specific agents to these channels were currently being made.

Corticun told Sunstrom that the special “flying squad” would expedite the needed data for him. He informed Strom he would be arriving in Prairie Port early that evening …

Wet-suited divers, one by one in the stillness of the late-afternoon heat, rolled off the pontoon raft and into the dark waters of Tomahawk Hill reservoir west of Prairie Port, sank forty-seven feet, touched bottom, deployed and scanned the basin floor with powerful portable searchlights. The team was from the United States Army Corps of Engineers, and had been trying, for many hours, to locate leaks or cracks or other unsuspected openings which might account for millions of gallons of missing Tomahawk water. And the shortaging hadn't ended. Startling amounts of water, intermittently, continued to disappear.

Diving team leader Sergeant Mel Wallinor spotted dense undergrowth looming up ahead. Suspecting they had reached the original bed from which the reservoir had been expanded three decades before, he signaled the other swimmers into the area. Muck mushroomed as they flippered through the vegetation. Wallinor heard metal creaking, turned in time to see a flailing diver to his right shoot backward out of sight. Wallinor made for his comrade, was spun around and sucked through the undergrowth with amazing force. He banged into the moss-crusted latticework of a huge iron gate against which the diver was pinioned … through which reservoir water was escaping.

Watching the evening television news on the rented set as well as on one brought in by Heck Bevins's wife, the agents of Prairie Port took a dinner break and saw the anchormen of local NBC and CBS channels simultaneously announce the largest cash robbery in modern history, then cut to J. Edgar Hoover making his press conference statement earlier in Washington, D.C. After commercials reporters for both networks recapitulated the crime from in front of the Mormon State National Bank. CBS went to another reporter standing before the residency's office building. Pointing up to the lighted line of windows, the reporter stated these were the Bureau's current offices and that the enormity of the manhunt to come could best be judged by the additional space just taken by the FBI: the entire floor above. NBC went directly into the jam-packed anteroom of the Prairie Port residency office, where senior crime reporter Theodore Howel revealed the media expected an announcement of major significance at any moment.

CBS cut to Prairie Port's Municipal Airport, where a cargo plane was being unloaded. An off-camera reporter announced this was the FBI office equipment flown in from Washington for what was expected to be the greatest manhunt in U.S. history.